Vince Morgan (Photo: Facebook)

Vince Morgan, a former staffer for Congressman Charlie Rangel, will officially announce his decision to depart the race against his former boss today. Mr. Morgan is giving his endorsement to another one of Mr. Rangel's challengers, Adriano Espaillat.

"We're thrilled to have Vince Morgan's endorsement. It's yet another sign that Adriano's message of bringing bold, new ideas to Congress is resonating in all corners of the district," a spokesman for Mr. Espaillat, Ibrahim Khan, told The Politicker.

Mr. Morgan previously challenged Mr. Rangel in 2010 and he had positioned himself as one of the congressman's first confirmed challengers in this year's race. After keeping an admittedly "low profile" on the campaign trail while four other rivals emerged for Mr. Rangel's seat, Mr. Morgan said he was reconsidering his congressional bid earlier this week.

Mr. Morgan's announcement comes on the same morning Mr. Rangel is giving his first public appearance following more than two months where he was absent from Congress and his district while dealing with what his staff described as a serious back injury. Though he had kind words for his former boss throughout his ultimately aborted campaign, Mr. Morgan has emphasized a need for new representation after Mr. Rangel's more than forty year reign in Upper Manhattan.

Mr. Espaillat, who would be the first congressman of Dominican descent if his campaign is successful, is the lone Latino challenger to Mr. Rangel in a district in which the Latino population has grown larger than the congressman's African American base. So far, high profile backers are seen as having largely entered the race along racial lines with Mr. Espaillat getting endorsements from Dominican elected officials and Mr. Rangel racking up endorsements from Puerto Rican politicians. Mr. Morgan, who has worked on a variety of causes in the Central Harlem neighborhood that is the geographic heart of Mr. Rangel's base, is the first visible black community leader to endorse Mr. Espaillat.

Adriano Espaillat (Photo: NYS Senate)

State Senator Adriano Espaillat officially announced his intention to run for the House of Representatives in Upper Manhattan's 13th District at a fundraiser for the Barack Obama Democratic Club yesterday ending months of speculation over whether he would challenge veteran Congressman Charlie Rangel. Sources who attended the event said Mr. Espaillat, who would become the first Congressman of Dominican descent if his bid is successful, quoted from J.F.K.'s inaugural address and said "the torch must be passed down to a new generation of Americans."

Mr. Espaillat has been hinting at a run for Congress since at least January, but he initially signaled he was only interested in running if a predominantly Latino district was created uptown and did not desire a race against Mr. Rangel. Earlier this month, after the redistricting process left Mr. Espaillat with no other option than to run against the veteran congressman, he formed a campaign committee and began circulating petitions.

Mr. Rangel, 81, is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has spent more than four decades in the House of Representatives, but his censure for ethics violations in 2010 and the growing Latino majority in his district have led to speculation he might not run for re-election this time around. The congressman's allies in the State Assembly pushed a plan to protect him from a potential Latino challenger by taking a portion of his longtime base in Upper Manhattan and adding sections of The Bronx and Westchester to create a predominantly African-American district. That plan was not adopted when the final congressional map was approved by a three-judge panel. In addition to these political problems, Mr. Rangel has also been dealing with health woes that have led to two hospitalizations and his longest absence from the House floor in at least ten years. Despite these challenges, Mr. Rangel has remained adamant about his desire to run for re-election remain in his seat.

With the various issues swirling around Mr. Rangel, rumors have abounded he is running in order to pass his seat to his longtime ally, Assembyman Keith Wright, and would step down soon afterward if he is victorious in the race. Mr. Rangel vigorously denied these rumors in a statement last week. According to a source who attended the Barack Obama Democratic Club fundraiser yesterday, Mr. Wright spoke before Mr. Espaillat's announcement and said he hoped the campaign would not lead to a "civil war" between African-Americans and Latinos. Another source said Mr. Rangel's deputy chief of staff Geoffrey Eaton and former Democratic National Committee head Clyde Williams, who is running for the seat as well, were also in attendance. The Barack Obama Democrats are holding a meeting to decide who they will endorse on Wednesday.

Mr. Espaillat is considered a rising star in the State Democratic Party and could pose a formidable challenge to Mr. Rangel. The 13th District is over 50 percent Latino and heavily Dominican. Mr. Espaillat's status as the potential first Dominican congressman should give him great appeal in the district. In addition to Mr. Espaillat, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Williams, former executive and Democratic district leader Joyce Johnson is in the race and Mr. Rangel's ex-staffer Vince Morgan has been eyeing the seat. Like Mr. Rangel, Mr, Williams, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Morgan are African-American and could chip away at some of Mr. Rangel's support with his black base.

Vince Morgan (Photo: Facebook)

Vince Morgan, a former staffer for Congressman Charlie Rangel and a candidate against Charlie Rangel this year, had almost nothing but kind words for his former boss in a recent interview with The Perez Notes.

"Most recently I saw our esteemed Congressman, Rangel, who's one of my fraternity brothers ... at a fraternity event. ... The man has got a lot of talent. He is one of the best that there ever was, don't get me wrong," Mr. Morgan said when asked whether he and Mr. Rangel have discussed their opposing campaigns.

"He knows how to play the game better than anybody else. And he's certainly somebody who is going to be gracious and wonderful to people who've actually worked for him."

Mr. Morgan further explained how his time on Mr. Rangel's staff actually motivated him into seeking the office himself.

"That three and a half years was really the catalyst in me ultimately deciding I could run for office because I had a passion for public service, and that passion was forged in his office," he continued. "Do I think I could do it better? Yeah!"

He then made an interesting metaphor regarding his campaign and the veteran congressman's reelection bid.

"We're like milk. We all have an expiration date, and Mr. Rangel is past that expiration date on the milk," Mr. Morgan contended. "We need some fresh milk. I'm that fresh cup of milk that hopefully is going to help nourish this community and take it into the future."

However, many other candidates are eyeing possibly being that fresh cup of milk as well, and Mr. Morgan is unlikely to have the field entirely to himself.

The New York Times reported Clyde Williams, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton who's been raising large amounts of money, will probably run for the seat. Assemblyman Keith Wright and several other Uptown officials, including former Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, are only looking at running if Mr. Rangel retires and leave it vacant. State Senator Adriano Espaillat is also considering a campaign for Congress if there's a new majority Latino-district in Northern Manhattan, but he's also not thought to be interested in a head-to-head battle with Mr. Rangel.

Regardless of the candidates, Mr. Rangel's electoral future could be most strongly impacted by redistricting. None of the candidates potentially running for the seat have a clear conception of what the district's boundaries and demographics will even look like on June 26th when voters head to the polls.

It is now the second week of February and due to some colossal inertia in Albany, if you were this citizen who dreamed of service in the Legislature, you would likely not know a) which district you live in b) whether or not that district has a sitting lawmaker and c) when, precisely, election day is.

In other words, New York is about to embark on an election season as chaotic and unpredictable as any in memory.

“Excuse me! It’s the twilight zone!” screamed Doug Muzzio, a professor of public policy at Baruch College, when asked to give his assessment of the state of play. “The craven self-interest and disregard for even the rough-and-tumble of democracy by these people—they don’t get it at all. They want the game fixed and they are the fixers!”

He paused for a moment to catch his breath, or to keep his aorta from exploding into the telephone.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE DOING!”

The immediate reason for this political clusterfail is that—through a combination of sloth, happenstance and perhaps Machiavellian political calculation—two unrelated events traveling down parallel tracks went profoundly off the rails.

The first is that last year the Department of Defense denied the State of New York a waiver to hold its primaries in September. The waiver had been granted ever since Congress passed a law three years ago mandating an earlier election day to help military personnel stationed overseas with voting.

The Department of Justice sued to force the state to move up the September primary, and after several months of delays, a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the primary for congressional seats was to be held June 26.

As soon as that news broke, those considering a run for Congress—and those consultants and staffers helping them—broke into a sprint, as election day went from a comparatively leisurely eight and a half months away to now only five months off. (Privately, some politicos still doubt that this will really be the election day, perhaps expecting the power brokers in Albany to somehow defy a federal order or being so inured to chaos that they refuse to believe the state could actually have settled on a date when the elections are supposed to be held.)

But even if candidates for Congress at least know that they will face voters on June 26, this news does nothing for those in the State Assembly or State Senate and those who hope to join that club. The judge’s order applies only to federal races, so the state primary date remains unsettled. Republicans in the State Senate have argued that the June primary is too close to the end of the legislation session (which is slated to be completed the week before) and could thus lead to unnecessary politicking (ahem) during what are supposed to be business hours. They have pushed for having state races decided on the old election day in September, or, possibly, pushing the primary to August—when, Democrats point out, most New Yorkers are away, or at least tuning out politics.

If the Republicans prevail, or if they are unable to come to an agreement with the Democrats (which will, in essence, mean Republicans prevail), then New Yorkers will be asked to go to the polls four times in the course of eight months: once for the presidential primary in April, again for the congressional primaries in August or June, a third time for state legislative primaries in August or September, and then a fourth time for the general election in November.

Presumably by then ballots will have been printed with actual candidate names on them. Currently, voters around the state don’t have any idea who is vying to be their representative. For months, lawmakers in Albany have been holding hearings as part of the once-a-decade redistricting process to redraw legislative and congressional maps. Drafts of those maps were expected by last October, with final versions in hand by the first of the year at the latest. Instead, winter is turning into spring, and no candidate knows precisely which neighborhoods to go door-knocking in. A draft of the new maps for the State Senate created three districts out of whole cloth and pushed seven Democratic incumbents into four districts.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has threatened to veto it, sending the matter to the courts and creating more uncertainty and delay.

And if you are that citizen called to a career in public service, what does your pitch to voters sound like?

“Hi, I’m John Q. Public. Please come out and vote for me in June. Or in September. Unless you are drawn out of the district. The incumbent has been failing our community. Unless he is drawn out of the district. In which case, never mind.”

“The redistricting process has been shockingly late—I say shockingly late,” said Vince Morgan, a community banker who has been laying the ground work for a run against Charlie Rangel—in a Harlem district that could move up to the Bronx and Westchester, or could stay where it is and gobble up Hispanic voting blocs in Manhattan. As a hedge, he said he has begun making his case to voters in areas far removed from his home in the central part of the old district. “It’s not frustration—it’s anxiety. We are all very anxious waiting for the lines to come out. I have a better chance of telling you what the winning Pick Four numbers are than giving you a date when this will all be settled” (though, Mr. Morgan points out, any confusion would effect his bid minimally, since “God blessed me with charisma”).

If Mr. Morgan and the residents of Harlem are confused, consider for a moment their neighbors to the north in the Hudson Valley region. The congressional district there has been one of the quintessential swing districts in the county, voting Democrat during Democratic waves (as in 2006) and Republican during Republican ones. The seat is currently held by Republican Nan Hayworth. If the towns of Poughkeepsie and Newburg are drawn into the district—they are now represented by Maurice Hinchey, who lives in Ithaca and who is retiring before the end of the year—it will become what is known as a “Plus Five” Democratic district—one sure to elect a Dem. If those two towns are grabbed by another district, then it becomes a “Plus Five” Republican district, making the incumbent, Ms. Hayworth, surely safe.

Rather than wait for the dust to settle, no fewer than five Democrats have thrown their hats into the ring, even though any of them could get drawn out of the district in the end.

“It certainly knocks the heck out of your fund-raising operation. There is a lot of hesitancy about getting involved,” said Joe Mercurio, an adviser to Matt Alexander, the mayor of Wappingers Falls, who is running for the seat. Mr. Mercurio described the awkwardness of asking potential voters for money for a candidate who may or may not be vying to represent them.

“Shit happens. This is a living-off-the-land kind of campaign.”

Or consider the case of Mark Levine, a political activist in Washington Heights. He had been planning to run for the City Council in 2013, until rumors started flying that Albany map makers may draw a Dominican-majority congressional district. If that were to happen, the incumbent state senator, Adriano Espailliat, would run for it, creating a vacancy in the State Senate that M. Levine  would have only a few weeks to prepare a run for—or, depending on Albany, a few months. Or, he too could wake and find himself drawn out of the district entirely.

“It’s just crazy. I’ve got little kids, and I don’t know if I can take them on a summer vacation, or a spring vacation for that matter,” he said. “I’ve become so frustrated with the process that I have to stop reading the blogs, trying to ignore every tiny rumor and ignore what is beyond my control. It was becoming extremely unproductive.”

But as tempting as it is to presume that it is simply the forces of nature that have conspired to create disarray, a confluence of unfortunate events, recall that the chaos favors the status quo. As long as would-be challengers don’t know which district they are running in, they can’t campaign. Until election day is finalized, they can’t start gathering signatures. They can fund-raise a bit, but for a fight against whom, exactly?

And so if you happen to notice a certain hair-pulling anxiety among would-be politicos who aren’t sure what the next few weeks will bring, those who have been ensconced in office for a while sound quite willing to let the process play out for as loooonggg aaassss iiiittt ttttaakkkess.

To wit, earlier this week, The Observer caught up with 40-year incumbent Charlie Rangel. He insisted he was running again, even if he couldn’t be sure where exactly—a piece of missing intelligence he sounded like he was taking in stride.

“This will be hard for a young fellow like yourself to understand,” he said. “But after 81 years, this should be the worst of my problems.”

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Indeed, Mr. Rangel had been out late the night before at a gala for the Martin Luther King Jr. Democratic Club, where he had cut it up on the dance floor, and by the next afternoon he had already appeared on Huckabee, gone to three NYCHA Family Day events, one senior center luncheon and two block association parties, posed for approximately two dozen photographs, given out 40 “Vote Rangel” notebooks and told at least three old women he admired their hairdos.

“This is what I do. All the time. Every year—election year, no election year. I am addicted to this. I love it.”

This week Mr. Rangel will once again host his annual birthday fund-raiser at the Plaza. It will have little of last year’s hoopla, back when Mr. Rangel was locked in the toughest re-election fight of his career and mired in an ethics investigation that resulted in a censure resolution. Then, for the first time, members of the press were allowed in (most of whom slapped their foreheads at the ostentatious display). Protesters amassed outside and were treated to a rare one-finger salute from former mayor David Dinkins. Republican operatives were posted at the entrance, hoping to videotape Democrats heading inside for future negative ads.

But at that time Mr. Rangel retained at least a slim chance of regaining the chairmanship and New York Democrats were compelled to pay tribute once again to someone who had always spread around his own considerable largesse.

This time around, after Mr. Rangel squeaked past the 50-percent mark in 2010, there is a sense in political circles that he may finally be overstaying his welcome. His clout in Washington is greatly diminished. The money that he would raise at the annual fund-raiser was once spread all over the country, but now, Mr. Rangel mostly needs it for his own battles. Going to the fund-raiser has become something like visiting with cousins: you go, partially out of obligation, partially out of fondness, but on the whole wish you didn’t have to.

“People are still supportive, out of respect, but there isn’t the enthusiasm there that has been in the past,” said one Harlem political operative. “I think the last time people stood up and supported him because they felt bad. This time I’m not so sure.”

Despite Mr. Rangel’s relentless neighborhood touring there is still some question as to whether or not he will actually go through with another run. Most politicos thought 2010 would be the end of it, and that he would anoint a successor and spare himself the indignities of life in the minority. His wife, Alma, is said to be strongly against another campaign. The shape of the district will likely change after redistricting, becoming more white and middle class or Hispanic and working class, or both.

And despite the affection that his constituents shower him with, nowhere is there more of an itching for Mr. Rangel to step aside than in his native Harlem. There, a generation of one-time young political upstarts have grown old waiting around for Mr. Rangel’s retirement.

“He will be 83 years old. It’s time for Mr. Rangel to step aside and make room for new leadership,” said Vince Morgan, a community banker and former Rangel aide who challenged him in 2010 and has vowed to do so again. “He is the devil that we know.”

Mr. Rangel knows that he is toxic, and he still sees the ethics investigation last year as a way to weaken his contributions to the Democratic Party.

“At one point I was invaluable to our victories. At another point I was a heavy load as we had to explain what the ethics committee had done. No one needs dead weight,” he said. “If they have to explain you more than why they should be re-elected, that’s a problem. So it was two-fer. One, Rangel wouldn’t be able to come in there and help, and two, the candidates would have to explain why they took my money.”

As Mr. Rangel cruised around Harlem on Saturday, he again and again brought up news reports over the past month that revealed wrongdoing on the part of the ethics committee. The chief counsel in the case against Mr. Rangel has now said that if it had all come to light earlier, the case would have been dismissed.

Rather than hope the episode will be forgotten, Mr. Rangel tells anybody who will listen that “there is not a scintilla of evidence that there was any wrongdoing.” If he could somehow be exonerated, it would mean that era of tabloid coverage and returned campaign contributions would finally be over, and Mr. Rangel would rightly resume his place as one of the chieftains of the Democratic Party.

The Cadillac pulled up in front of the Bethune Gardens Senior Center on Amsterdam Avenue. Inside, a dozen or so residents were bent over macaroni cheese and collard greens, but before Mr. Rangel got out to reminisce with them, he sat and stared out of the front window of the car.

“Life goes on and on. You’ve got to roll with the punches. Who said the truth shall make ye free? Somebody?”

He got out of the car.

“Okay! Bethune! Old folks! Let’s go!”

dfreedlander@observer.com