Posted on 06/26/2012 3:45:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, a once-towering figure in New York politics whose reputation was diminished when he was censured in Washington, is again fighting to keep his seat as a group of Democrats prepare to challenge him in a primary on Tuesday.
Rangel, who has represented Harlem since 1971 and is a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, is battling a crowd of younger politicians in a redrawn district that is now heavily Latino. Yet most political watchers still see him being re-elected.
Rangel's opponents in the Democratic primary include state Senator Adriano Espaillat, who has strong Latino support; Clyde Williams, who worked in the Clinton White House and whose got a boost when he won endorsements from the New York Times and the New York Daily News; Harlem community activist Craig Schley, and businesswoman Joyce Johnson.
Espaillat has called the 82-year-old lawmaker the "poster child for dysfunction in Washington." And at a recent campaign event in Washington Heights, a Manhattan neighborhood just north of Harlem, Schley, a youthful former model, likened Rangel to a rotting fruit that had fallen from its tree.
Rangel has survived difficult times before. The U.S. House of Representatives censured him in 2010 for ethics violations, including failing to pay income taxes, and he stepped down as the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means committee. Rangel also had to fight a tough battle on Election Day that year to retain his seat.
Once one of the most powerful members of Congress, he now walks slowly through the halls of Capitol Hill with a cane.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
Dont you know where he lives?
He could rape a dog in a classroom, but as long as his skin is dark enough, his district will send him back with 95% of the vote.
Ain’t it the truth....sad....very sad.
“Reputation damaged, NY’s Rangel battling to hold House seat”
Reputation damaged? His supporters couldn’t care less; if he loses it is because of the national trend where sufficient numbers of “replacement Americans” have been imported into his district to ethnically cleanse it.
This is the Dems’ solution to the war contraband issue of 150 years ago.
Thanks Kaslin.
This is a guy who gives slime a bad name. If he gets kicked out of Congress, so what? He’ll still get full pay (probably) for the rest of his miserable life — and he’s, what?, in his 80s?
You’re welcome
You’re welcome
The district is no longer black majority. He may still win though.
This might be true in the general election, but in the primary skin color is not a factor.
Rangel’s presence in the US Congress makes fools out of his constituants. He needs a new seat in a federal prison.
He will have Obama walk around money to win. NYC black abortion rate, drugs, Black on Black crime, etc changes the racial mix. Truly a tragic consequence of the New Society welfare state which has evolved into a form of self induced ethic cleansing of blacks by blacks. Rangel is simply a plantation forman of the nanny state. All a national disgrace!
Am in NYC now visiting after moving away in 1982. The biggest change are the number of Asians. They are everywhere, smart and productive. Rangel’s people are tragic relicts of the cotton club.
From his district, anyone who replaces him will be at least as bad, as long his his complection is right.
Forty years is enough for Chollie. What we will get as a successor may make us long for Rangel though...
Anyone else would have gone to jail.
Wrong - if he switched to the GOP, he'd win 5% of the vote. It's all about the racial preferences and freebies, which is why the GOP consistently loses when it runs black candidates against white Dems in majority black districts.
A sure sign of ‘getting old’.
Living through the end of the FDR era.
Surviving the ‘Great Society’
Surviving Adam Clayton Powell
Surviving Jimmy Carter
Surviving Alcee Hastings
Surviving the rest of the ‘crooked pols’ who use and used the Treasury as their own little ‘piggy bank’, and like the man says, it is ‘their’ turn to be corrupt because they deserve it.
Of course, this administration could be the ‘straw that broke the camels back’...
40 years is more then enough. In fact it’s way to long
One could offer a million to one odds and not find a person in that district who would bet that Rangle would not be reelected. He is sticking it to the Man so he gets a pass. My prediction, Rangel 75% of vote, the rest split 25%.
He represents Harlem doesn’t he? If so, he’s admired for stickin it to “The Man”.
Didn’t Rangel succeed Adam Clayton Powell? Powell had quite a few, ahem, ethical problems of his own too.
Rangel had to defeat Powell (by 1970, Powell was spending most of his time in Bimini than in DC after he was stripped of his committee chairmanship).
I thought it was Charlie who said, "We make the rules up as we go along..." but, it was Alcee Hastings. birds of a feather...
“The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” -Edwin Edwards (LA Gov)
In Rangel’s case, he probably couldn’t lose the election even if they catch him in bed with a dead latina prostitute and a live latino boy.
The point of the article is that Harlem is becoming less black. It's becoming more Latino. It's also being gentrified. The new population may not be so keen on having a Congressman who sees himself as exclusively representing blacks.
Too bad that not one Pub black candidate could be found to challenge Charlie. The clones will still vote for him and if not, then the black Dem rep. replacing him will still be no better in the long run since he will be a vote for...Obama. Period and that will in the long run not benefit the black citizens in that safe Dem district.
OH Alcee! of H.R. 645 the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act?
My hope as well, however, with the cream of NY's political aristocracy all pulling for him from Cuomo and Bloomberg to former Mayors Dinkins and Koch, he seems to be a shoe in. Cuomo's logic that "..he has seniority, he knows the system, and I think he is best suited not just for the district, but for his state” speaks volumes. To say a congressman, who earned what amounted to Congress’ most serious punishment, short of expulsion and was censured for ethical misconduct is best suited for his State should tell all the dire straits NY is in.
Drudge calls Rangel’s primary victory “redemption”. How is being re-elected despite being a proven criminal and tax cheat “redemption”? I’d call it getting away with murder.
The gentrification of Harlem means they don’t want an old man representing their hip constituency. Has less to do with race or even corruption (which is expected). He’ll survive this contest, but doesn’t have many let in him.
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