Claiming this has nothing to do with the way Rangel ousted his father in 1970, Adam Clayton Powell 4th is running against Bowtie Charlie Rangel in Harlem:
Kicking off his campaign to oust Rep. Charlie Rangel today, Adam Clayton Powell 4th charged that the elder statesman merely wants to run and win so he can anoint a successor and "manipulate the process into some Machiavellian result."
"Everybody in political circles knows that [Rangel] doesn't want to fulfill another two years… I'm not making this up. Absolutely. The fact is everyone knows that the strategy is for him to be re-elected and then resign abruptly to appoint his successor. That would be totally undemocratic. The people in Northern Manhattan — not Charlie Rangel — [should] be the only ones who choose who the next congressman is… The other speculation is that he may collect the signatures and then hand them over to somebody else, like [Manhattan Democratic] County Leader Keith Wright or whoever they pick, much like it happened in Queens, when Congressman Tom Manton did that, and he went all the way through a re-election, collected signatures and then in the middle of July, surprised everybody by giving them to Joe Crowley," Powell said.
Rangel advisor Kevin Wardally brushed off Powell’s claims, saying Rangel
“"intends to win and serve this community for another two years. Period. Period. I guess Adam wants to gin up his supporters, [but] he has no inside information. He cannot hand over the office to some hand-picked successor… It doesn’t work that way… He’s just talking nonsense.”
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