Isn’t all this very apparent now? I had an old friend, (last year) that is a college professor tell me I was a racist for not supporting Obama. Needless to say, our friendship has been strained ever since. It is becoming the M.O. for most Dems, and for the Caucasian Dems…..that old white guilt….for the Black Dems….easier to play the race card and get away with it. They are getting brazenly heavy handed.

I have a black coworker who looked at everything the candidates stood for and made an educated decision to vote for McCain over Obama.  She has called names and ostracized by her own family, including her father who is a minister, because they feel that she should have voted for Obama because he was black.  I left the Democratic Party because they have become the biggest bigots since the KKK filled their ranks, but it is reverse discrimination.  I vote for the person, but I will not sit around and have someone call me a bigot or racist because I won’t vote solely on race or skin color.

Rangel is a long-time NYC African-American activist, representing a largely African-American district, and supporting an African-American former Lt. Governor-turned-Governor (as a result of the Eliot Spitzer scandal and resignation) who, unfortunately for Rangel and those he represents, was not originally elected as the governor, has not been very effective as the governor, and is not very popular among the general New York State population.

In all likelihood, and irrespective of what Rangel has to say about it, Cuomo (son of a very popular former NYS governor) will likely run and will almost certainly beat Patterson in a primary – based on Cuomo’s brand-name and his qualifications and experience.  Rangel will naturally stick up for his fellow African-American – as military people stuck up for Eisenhower – as Catholics stuck up for JFK – as southerners stuck up for Carter – and as African-Americans stuck up for Obama.

(Sight-challenged persons might stick up for Patterson – since he is legally blind and often requires various types of assistance.)

Rangel is just a throwback to the early civil rights movement and will always almost automatically defend African-Americans just as the typical mother will always defend her children.

TK – “Rangel is just a throwback to the early civil rights movement and will always almost automatically defend African-Americans just as the typical mother will always defend her children.”

Should read as – “Rangel is just a throwback to the early civil rights movement and will always almost automatically defend [Left-Wing] African-Americans just as the typical mother will always defend her children.”

Re: Post 4;

Well, since I guess some 80% of African-American voters are registered to vote as Democrats – one might use your (therefore, I think, redundant) “Left-Wing” insertion in my statement.

BUT – I would be interested in seeing how Rangel would respond in the case of an African-American Republican running in an election campaign against a white Democratic candidate in his state. (???)

EVERYBODY tends to be ethnocentric to one degree or another – and, like most Mothers – EVERYONE tends to “defend” their own kind – whatever that “kind” might be.

From Day 1, there was little chance that Patterson would be elected in his own right as governor of NYS.

re:post #5 – “BUT – I would be interested in seeing how Rangel would respond in the case of an African-American Republican running in an election campaign against a white Democratic candidate in his state.” 

That’s easy.
He would back the white Democrat. It’s always about the Party and politics, and not about color.
If, during the 2008 presidential election, you had a black republican nominee and a white or Asian democrat nominee, the majority of blacks would vote for the democrat nominee. They wouldn’t give a hoot about electing the ‘first black president’ in such a scenario, and the media would give the republican nominee hell if he resisted showing his long-form birth certificate to the public. THEN, you would see the ‘media’ doing its investigative reporting.

But I think you already know this, don’t you TK?

Re: Post 6;

What I definitely know is that the drastic increase that developed in ideological political partisanship in the mid-‘90s – and which has increased and continued unabated since – has made “the party” and “winning” DRASTICALLY more important than “the general welfare” – that the elected ideologue-idiots are supposed to be serving.

However, among the general population, I also believe that there still remains a very significant quantum of “like supports like”.