New York
Related: About this forumAt Lenox homecoming, Rangel mocks gentrifiers
Conor Skelding
On the evening before the Democratic primary, Rep. Charlie Rangel rallied his adoring base in Harlem, and tweaked some of the neighborhood's new arrivals.
I was raised right here, he told about fifty supporters.
Yeah, where we live, big time! shouted one of them. Your neighbors are here! Your neighbors are here! We fired up!
Rangel met with his neighors of Lenox Terrace, in front of the Bethel AME church across 132nd St. from the development.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/06/8547780/lenox-homecoming-rangel-mocks-gentrifiers
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Steve Kornacki
The parallels between what Charlie Rangel insists will be his final campaign for Congress and his first one are obvious: an entrenched, aging incumbent revered for his civil rights record but diminished by ethical misconduct scrambling to beat back a primary challenge from an ambitious state legislator who promises to bring new vitality to the position.
The twist, of course, is that Rangels present-day challenger, Adriano Espaillat, is now cast in the role that Rangel himself played when he stunned Adam Clayton Powell in a 1970 Democratic primary. But 44 years of incumbency, the loss of a powerful committee chairmanship to scandal, and a humiliating rebuke from his own House colleagues have created for the 84-year-old Rangel many of the same vulnerabilities that he exploited when he knocked off Powell all those decades ago.
As appealing as this narrative is, though, the bigger threat to Rangel may be simple demographics. When he wrested the seat from Powell in 1970, his Harlem-based district was arguably the center of black political power in America, but today that same district is barely one-quarter black, with a growing Latino population that now accounts for 55 percent of its residents.
It is this profound, and still ongoing, shift that has fueled the Dominican-born Espaillat, who is making his second bid for the seat after narrowly losing to Rangel two years ago. The 13th District, it seems, is destined to be represented in the very near future by someone with a background more like Espaillats than Rangels. (Rangel's estranged father was Puerto Rican, but he doesn't identify himself as Hispanic.)
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/06/8547781/when-rangel-held-demographic-revolution-bay