Bill Clinton to Charlie Rangel: 'My friend, my congressman'
Bill Clinton on the stump.
10:50 am Jun. 13, 2012
Bill Clinton isn't officially endorsing Rep. Charlie Rangel for re-election, but he did record a video for the 82-year-old congressman's birthday that ought to work just as well.
In the video, Clinton refers to Rangel as "my friend, my congressman."
Rangel is running of re-election in a newly configured 13th congressional district covering Upper Manhattan and parts of the Bronx which is, for the first time, majority Latino. Among his challengers is State Senator Adriano Espaillat, who stands to become America's first-ever Dominican-American congressman.
Among other things, Clinton also tells Rangel in the video, "Your energy never flags, your determination never wavers." Which sounds very much like a rebuttal of Espaillat's primary criticism of Rangel, which is simply that he's been around too long, and by implication that he's too old, to be effective.
