“How Schumer’s kept his Democrats in array — so far,” by Politico’s Marianne Levine and Burgess Everett: “The Senate majority leader is not known for putting a hard whip on his members, yet Schumer’s willingness to dish tough truths to the likes of Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin — not to mention Bernie Sanders — amounts to his recipe for delivery on Biden’s domestic agenda. … Behind the scenes, Schumer began to nudge harder than his genial nature suggests. He recalled telling Sanders, the Senate Budget Committee chair and the firmest “no” vote on the bipartisan plan, that ‘if you want the moderates to vote with the progressive vision, you can’t vote no on this. You don’t have that luxury.’ Then Schumer gathered Manchin and Sinema, his two most critical centrists, and told them of the caucus liberals: ‘If you won’t vote yes on the budget resolution, I can’t get them to vote yes’ on the bipartisan bill. The party’s two wings “each need each other,” Schumer said in an interview, explaining his ‘two-track’ legislative strategy to link it with a party-line spending bill.”
