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The whip-elect: Talk about calling an election early!

It’s still 15 months before Senate Democrats elect their leadership after next year’s mid-terms, but Hawaiʻi U. S. Sen. Brian Schatz is now being hailed by national media as a lock to become the next Democratic whip.

That’s the No. 2 party post in the Senate, and it might even come with an inside track for Schatz, 52, to eventually take over the No. 1 job currently held by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, 74. By then, of course, it could be Senate majority leader if the Democrats remember how to win elections again.

It’s partly Schumer’s new endorsement of Schatz that had Punchbowl

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