Rangel thrashes Espaillat

If my state senator, Adriano Espaillat, had raised any policy issues, such as Rangel’s historic closeness with the finance sector, or his ethical collapse of a few years ago (when he was found to be occupying four rent-controlled apartments among other crass behavior), he might have won the coveted Harlem congressional seat and safely occupied it for the usual three to five decades.

Instead, Espaillat relied on his Dominican ethnicity to attract a majority in the area’s shifting demographic base, and that just wasn’t enough to unseat a supremely connected politician who racked up endorsements from Bill Clinton, Governor Cuomo and a raft of other dubious but influential types. Espaillat never laid a glove on Rangel while Rangel blasted him as a closet conservative.

So it’s back to business as usual for two more years, not that anything important will change. Perhaps someone with more interest in educating my district’s residents about what is wrong and what needs to change will come along in two years and turn this into a race about politics rather than genes.