Senator Schumer’s cruise to re-election this fall highlights more than his fund-raising prowess or the relative weakness of the available Republican field. It says a lot about the electoral strength of centrist Democrats who combine a statewide registration advantage with policies that aren’t held prisoner by the far left. His broad base of support after an eventful six years in the Senate is evidence that he has earned the right to be re-hired. There is still room for evolution in the former assemblyman from Brooklyn, but in his political pragmatism and tireless devotion to the legislative process, he is the closest thing our state has to an inheritor of Jacob Javits.

Like Javits, the four-term liberal Republican senator who left office a quarter-century ago, Mr. Schumer has built a career being a giant killer. After serving as a congressman from Manhattan’s West Side, Javits beat Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. for the position of New York State attorney general; after serving as a member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Schumer defeated Senator D’Amato. Javits was the son of poor immigrants, pursued a law-degree, and fought right-wing conservatives as well as establishment Democrats in his attempt to preserve the legacy of the Party of Lincoln. Mr. Schumer was raised in middle-class Brooklyn, and after achieving a law degree from Harvard entered public service, often disagreeing with the far left of his own party as well as the Republican establishment. Both men are accused by true believers of being insufficiently ideological, but both stitched together new coalitions combining a pro-business and pro-Israel perspective with moderate to liberal social policies.

When Mr. Schumer ran against Mr. D’Amato six years ago, he could withstand the Arthur Finkelstein-penned advertising attacks accusing him of being “dangerously liberal” because his record did not make him vulnerable. Unusual among New York Democrats, Mr. Schumer was pro-death penalty. While he fought the National Rifle Association for reasonable gun control in the form of the Brady bill and the recently expired assault weapons ban, he’d been active in passing the 1994 Crime Bill, which funded 100,000 new police officers in cities across America. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Steve Grossman, could credibly characterize him in a 1998 interview with The Forward as “very much a part of the Democratic Party that is no longer tax-and-spend, no longer weak on crime.”

In the Senate, Mr. Schumer has been obsessive in addressing the kind of retail constituent politics that led Mr. D’Amato to be called “Senator Pothole.” He has a pro-development perspective that has led him to support private-sector projects, especially upstate. And while he has voted with his party more than 90% of the time, he nonetheless supported a $4,000 college tuition tax deduction and received a 55% rating from the nonpartisan Tax-Payers for Common Sense, which is dedicated to cutting wasteful government spending. While he appeared excessively partisan in leading the fight to block a confirmation vote on the judicial nominee Miguel Estrada, he reached across party lines to endorse the new director of central intelligence, Porter Goss. In an often harshly polarized Congress, he has shown a willingness to work with Republicans for the good of New York and the nation.

Most importantly, like Senator Lieberman, Mr. Schumer has shown himself to be a “9/11 Democrat” who clearly understands the stakes of the war on terror. And he has not flinched in placing broader blame on the exportation of the hate that leads to violence, saying “more that just about anything else, the root cause of terrorism is the Saudi propagation of Wahhabism.” In Sunday’s debate he had the grace and good judgment not to blindly attack the president’s foreign policy.

Mr. Schumer’s Republican opponent, Assemblyman Howard Mills, deserves credit for not pandering to the far right in search of cheap definition from opposition. The Republican establishment knew that they were giving this young state legislator an almost impossible task in toppling Mr. Schumer, and here’s hoping the collateral benefit of increased name recognition will serve Mr. Mills well in a subsequent run for Congress.

The biggest question about this election is what Mr. Schumer will do with his expected mandate. His talent for combining policy promotion with self-promotion means there remains plenty of work for him to do in the Senate. It seems likely that he could match Javits’s four terms in office, and do much good for the state and nation – which is why it is a mistake for him to continue to be coy about the possibility of running for governor in 2006. There is much to suggest Mr. Schumer’s exceptional talent for serving as a legislator, but the capacity to be a great chief executive is a different talent entirely. Putting aside his characteristic restless ambition would be good for both the Senate and the state. There is no reason to nervously feel that the grass is always greener when you serve as New York’s senior senator. Instead, Mr. Schumer can aim to be in the Senate an example of principled moderation and effective governance across party lines. That would be the most powerful way to carry forward the legacy of Jacob Javits.