4th Week Lexington - Charlie Rangel's fight to remain

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Lexington

Charlie Rangel’s fight to remain

Republican primaries are about ideas; Democratic ones, about dividing the spoils

Jun 21st 2014 | From the print edition

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AFTER 43 years in Congress Charles Rangel has developed a perfect expression‎‍ for greeting voters. Arriving this week at a high school in his New York district, which runs from Harlem through Upper Manhattan to bits of the Bronx, he gazed about with a look of toothy delight, spiced with wide-eyed amazement. He looked like a favourite uncle discovering a surprise birthday party—though as a man fighting for his political life, Mr Rangel made sure that he was the one bearing gifts.

“You are the gems and jewels of this community,” the 84-year-old Democrat told students on June 16th: winners of a technology contest sponsored by Congress. They received certificates of “Special Congressional Recognition” signed by Mr Rangel, and flags that had flown above the Capitol in Washington. Such flags are “very sacred, very historic,” the congressman said—something to pass to their children and their “children’s children”.

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• Charles Rangel

A moment earlier the auditorium had been restive. Mr Rangel was very late. Tardiness is the privilege of a man who has survived much: a brutal childhood, heroic service in Korea, the civil-rights era. He was one of the most powerful black men in America, until he was caught failing to pay all his taxes (awkwardly for the then-chairman of a tax-writing committee). In 2010 Barack Obama hinted that it was time for him to retire “with dignity”.

In 2012 he came within 1,100 votes of losing a Democratic primary to a Dominican-born New York state senator, Adriano Espaillat. Wearied by scandal and for a time confined to a wheelchair by back problems, Mr Rangel was also weakened by demography. His congressional district, New York’s 13th, was redrawn to become 55% Hispanic. It has seen rapid gentrification, notes Basil Smikle, a Harlem-based political consultant, bringing in white (and black) professionals who prefer Mr Obama’s post-racial coalition-building to Mr Rangel’s fierier appeals.

On June 24th Mr Rangel faces a fresh primary challenge by Mr Espaillat, who is backed by some big trade unions and New York Democratic bosses—though the mayor, Bill de Blasio, is staying neutral. Mr Rangel has support from Democratic leaders in Congress and ex-President Bill Clinton. He has not shown tremendous grace. During a debate Mr Rangel mocked his 59-year old rival (“this young fellow”), asking what he had done “besides saying he’s a Dominican”. That jab prompted calls to avoid stirring up racial divisions from Mr de Blasio and—startlingly—from Al Sharpton, a New York activist who has often used race as a political cudgel.

Back in the high-school auditorium, loud cheers greeted Mr Rangel’s belated arrival. He strode about, no wheelchair in sight, and declared the room full of future success stories, while warning that at this moment students in China and India were collecting prizes too. He stressed the power of Congress to bankroll opportunity through grants, and growled about hate-filled white conservatives who “refuse to believe they lost the civil war”.

It was a vintage performance, combining Mr Rangel’s spiky charm, identity politics and the Washington seniority that for decades let him shower federal dollars on his district, helping it to overcome urban decay and—a generation back—a crack-cocaine epidemic. That mix of swagger and patronage explains why Mr Rangel is hard to beat, though two minor candidates may yet cause turbulence. One, a young pastor, could either split the black vote or the anti-Rangel vote. The other, Yolanda Garcia, has barely campaigned but does have a very Dominican name, spurring allegations that she is the creation of pro-Rangel forces (the Rangel camp denies any link). The general election will be easy: Mr Rangel won 91% of the vote in 2012.

The Rangel campaign has attacked Mr Espaillat for voting with Republicans on occasion, issuing a leaflet which depicts the state senator as a puppet controlled by leering conservatives (including, curiously, Sarah Palin). But when pressed Mr Rangel says the primary fight is not “as much about ideology” as about population shifts and which candidate inspires confidence.

For his part Mr Espaillat claims to stand to Mr Rangel’s populist left. Greeting early-morning commuters on the north-western corner of Central Park—“Senator Espaillat, running for Congress”—he grumbles that his rival is too keen on wooing big chain stores (Mr Espaillat wants tax breaks for small businesses) and too soft on Wall Street. But helpers deliver the real message, booming: “Time to retire Rangel. Been there 43 years.”

Deploring and practising the politics of race

Mr Espaillat is not above making his own ethnic appeals. In 2012 he accused a Dominican-American politician of betraying “our community” for endorsing Mr Rangel. This time he says he deplores the politics of race. Yet ahead of the primary Dominicanos USA, an outfit funded by Dominican business leaders, has sent paid canvassers to remind Dominican-Americans to turn out on June 24th (though the group is careful not to endorse any candidate). Paulina Mercado, a canvasser working streets of pre-war apartment blocks on a hot summer night, has herself registered 600 new voters since November, seeking Dominicans at naturalisation ceremonies, schools and Little League baseball games. Overall her group has registered more than 21,000 voters in New York, to let “the Dominican voice be heard”.

The contrast with Republican politics is instructive. For all their flaws, primary fights in safe conservative districts often raise large questions: about the proper role of government, or whether bipartisan compromise amounts to treachery. In Mr Rangel’s ultra-safe district, those likely to vote in Democratic primaries tend to want as much government as possible: they disagree only on how to divide up the spoils. That is one message to draw from Mr Rangel’s fight for a 23rd term: the president’s post-racial brand of Democratic politics has shallow roots. Another: Democrats are short of new ideas.