The Senator Has the Floor

To wit, Schumer's Chinese lunch covers the following pu-pu platter of motifs:

· "Sweet 'N Low is made in Brooklyn," he says, eyeing the packets of sugar substitute on the table a few minutes after he is seated. "I'll tell you a good story about that." And he does.

· He doesn't care for the spring rolls at Hunan Dynasty but he loves the Szechwan shrimp, which the restaurant often comps him. "One thing I've learned," Schumer says, "is that when a restaurateur offers you something, provided it's modest, you don't turn it down. You insult him." Particularly at ethnic restaurants. "I have a story about this," Schumer says, which he tells. (It involves a carafe of wine at an Italian place in Brooklyn.)

· He scored "four 800s" on his SAT, he says, including two achievement tests.

· Schumer, whose suits are often wrinkled and ties are often askew, was dubbed one of the nation's "frumpiest" senators by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

· He shares quotes from Albert Einstein, Lord Tennyson and Justice Louis Brandeis, among others.

Schumer often interrupts his interruptions to make semantic distinctions about the words he uses. For instance, Schumer says he is occasionally "aggravated" by his reputation for being too hungry for media attention. "Actually 'annoyed' is the proper word," Schumer says. "Brooklynites say 'aggravated.' 'Aggravated' is what happens with a skin wound. If you scratch it, you aggravate it, make it worse. 'Annoyed' is more of a mental condition.

"Anyway, where were we?"

The media-hungry thing.

"I get annoyed by things," Schumer says. "But then I say, you're one lucky guy." He loves his job, his wife, Iris, and his two daughters, 16 and 20 (who he says accuse him of having "absolutely no gaydar"). They have a nice home in Park Slope and are vacationing together in England this week.

So, he goes a little overboard about getting media attention. "That should be the worst thing people say about me," Schumer says.

Like his conversational style, Schumer's approach to politics can wend in multiple directions. "He's a quick study on complex issues and he can translate that in a lot of places," says former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, who served with Schumer in the House. "Chuck's instinct is to reach out for anything, and the problem is that sometimes he tries to touch too many issues." One peril of this is overexposure. Politicians should always watch that line, Panetta says, and Schumer is never far from it.