Brooklyn: Hakeem Jeffries vs Charles Barron

Towns strikes back-- endorses Charles Barron

Earlier today, we talked a little bit about how insurgent Democrats like Matt Cartwright and Beto O'Rourke have been beating tired old Machine hacks (and in these two cases, powerful senior incumbents) and inspiring independent-minded candidates who fully embrace progressive values and shun any association with the corrupt DC Democratic leadership, sort of like Bernie Sanders has for his entire career. In practical terms, this has little to do with the intense analysis by one of Obama's former Harvard Law professors, Roberto Unger (a former Brazilian cabinet minister under Lula, who also called for Lula's impeachment), although it isn't unrelated, at least not existentially. Unger says that for progressive values to move forward, progressive voters have to help defeat Obama to teach Democrats a lesson. That's incredibly naive since, clearly, the lesson the Democratic Establishment will learn is NOT the one Unger wants to teach. They're more likely to learn that the need even more conservative candidates than Obama-- and no African Americans.

Although there was a district in Chicago and one in Philly where Obama got 90% of the vote in 2008, there were only four where he went over 90%-- Charlie Rangel's Harlem district (about 48% Hispanic/30% Black), Jose Serano's Bronx district (about 63% Hispanic/30% Black), Yvette Clarke's Brooklyn district (almost 60% Black), and the Bedford-Stuyvesant/East New York/Ft Greene Brooklyn district that has been represented by Edolphus Towns since 1982 (just over 60% Black). Towns is finally packing it in-- largely to avoid the humiliation of being defeated in a primary by progressive Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. The newly redrawn district-- now CD-8-- is still a minority-majority district, just a little less so; Obama would "only" have beaten McCain with 86%, not 91%.

As soon as Towns announced his retirement, the Democratic Establishment embraced Jeffries-- and he embraced them back. That was a bad move-- for him. City Councilman Charles Barron, probably one of those most radical non-right-wingers in U.S. politics, has been steadily gaining-- even surging, according to the NY Times. The Democratic Establishment is panicking... big-time.

The New York political world had long ago become accustomed to the incendiary words of Mr. Barron, a confrontational onetime Black Panther turned three-term City Councilman. His more outrageous remarks over the years, from calling Thomas Jefferson a pedophile to likening Gaza to a “concentration death camp” to expressing his desire to slap “the closest white person,” have given way to a reputation as a showboat and provocateur on the political fringe.

Considered an afterthought when he announced his candidacy for the United States Congress last November-- in a speech in which he called Muammar el-Qaddafi “my hero” and pledged to never salute the American flag-- Democratic leaders are now fretfully talking about a prospect they once considered unthinkable: a Congressman Barron.

His opponent, Hakeem S. Jeffries, a state assemblyman and self-styled conciliator who has raised far more money and received far more support from the political establishment, was expected to coast to victory. So there was surprise when Mr. Barron picked up the endorsement of the city’s largest public employees union and the blessing of the man he wants to replace, Representative Edolphus Towns, who will retire. With 10 days to go before the Democratic primary, it has became clear that Mr. Barron is gaining traction, with the help of a passionate voter base in the historically black Brooklyn neighborhoods where his roots run deep.

There are signs of panic among members of the Democratic establishment, who worry Mr. Barron could prove to be a headache in their ranks and an alienating figure on the national stage.

Popular Democrats abruptly emerged this week to denounce him as a dangerous, anti-Israel radical. Edward I. Koch, the former mayor, called him a viper; other community leaders pointed reporters to the Anti-Defamation League’s list of his more provocative quotes; and in an e-mail to supporters this week, a local group of Russian Jews announced a hastily planned rally on Monday to denounce Mr. Barron as “a fringe radical and anti-Semitic, anti-Israel activist.” The first word of the subject line said it all: EMERGENCY.

In an interview, Mr. Barron would not comment on past statements, calling them “a distraction” from the issues, raised by people who are frightened by his campaign’s “building momentum.”

“Sometimes my being assertive and speaking truth to power become reduced to controversial and defiant,” he said, adding later, “I raise contradictions when I feel people who have suffered cause suffering to other people.”

The sudden rise in Mr. Barron’s fortunes has overshadowed Mr. Jeffries, who has been viewed as a rising star in New York politics with his ability to bring together white and black, rich and poor, the gentrifiers and the gentrified. Mr. Jeffries’s campaign chest is many times the size of Mr. Barron’s, having collected by this week $769,544 from 2,447 donors. Mr. Barron missed a deadline to report his contributions, but said he had almost $70,000, most of it his own money.

In some ways, the race offers a contrast between two different eras. Mr. Barron, 61, represents a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s, when black nationalists seemed to control the city’s racial conversation, while Mr. Jeffries, 41, represents the more recent model of black leaders like President Obama; Newark’s mayor, Cory A. Booker; and Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, who have earned establishment credentials and thrived by building coalitions with white liberals.

...Because relatively few voters turn up in primaries-- particularly a primary held in June for the first time in 40 years-- the unions’ ability to pull their members and other residents to the polls is regarded as crucial, according to Hank Sheinkopf, a political consultant. Mr. Jeffries has received a slew of union endorsements like those of the Transport Workers Union and 1199 SEIU, which represents health care workers. Mr. Barron surprised many in the political world when he snagged the support of DC 37, the city’s largest public employees union. Both candidates claim records for addressing the district’s perennial complaints: rundown housing, ineffective schools, wide unemployment and what many residents see as overly harsh police tactics.

But in contrast to many of the Democratic primary battles throughout the city, this one includes sharp policy differences between candidates. Mr. Barron opposes gay marriage; Mr. Jeffries co-sponsored the legislation that legalized it. Mr. Barron is an outspoken critic of Israeli policies; Mr. Jeffries visited Israel in 2008 with the Jewish Community Relations Council. Locally, Mr. Barron opposed the building of a basketball arena and the rest of the Atlantic Yards project near downtown Brooklyn; Mr. Jeffries has sought to mitigate its impact and criticized the developer for not delivering on promised housing.

And while Mr. Jeffries takes pride in his crossover appeal, Mr. Barron has made little effort to broaden his base. Instead, he continues to use loaded language, upsetting his white and Jewish colleagues with phrases emblematic of the Holocaust; he might, for example, accuse Israel of genocide. David Greenfield, a City Council member and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said Mr. Barron, if elected, would become “the most prominent anti-Semite in Congress.”