The Hill News

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said this weekend that he was uninterested in heading Senate Democrats' campaign efforts in 2012.

Schumer said he had been asked by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to head the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which he chaired in 2006 and 2008, again in 2012, but that he was not interested.

"I have been asked by Leader Reid and many of my colleagues, and I've said I think I can better serve our country, our state, and our party by focusing on issues and getting us to refocus on the middle class," Schumer told constituents, according to a report by the New York Observer.

Democrats have turned to Schumer, who won six GOP seats and the majority in 2006, and another eight seats in the 2008 election.

Democrats ended up losing six seats, under the DSCC chairmanship of Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), in last week's elections, and face an even more difficult task in 2012, when they must defend 21 seats, many in difficult states.

With Schumer seemingly unwilling to return to the DSCC, Democrats will be forced to lure one of their own into the very difficult task of leading the party's campaign efforts.

The New York senator did have advice, though, f! or whoever falls into that role, instructing them to focus on ! a "belea guered" middle class.

"Bottom line is this: In my view, the middle class this election felt both beleaguered and no one's talking to them," Schumer said. "The first party that will solve that problem, the first individuals that will solve that problem, will be the heroes of the next election."