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By Hunter Walker 1/12 4:41pm

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Charlie Rangel (Photo: MyFox New York)

Charlie Rangel on Black Republicans

Earlier this week, Congressman Charlie Rangel made headlines when he blasted the lack of diversity in President Obama’s Cabinet. In a roundtable with reporters yesterday evening where he weighed in on a variety of topics, Mr. Rangel also criticized the Republican Party for not being diverse enough. Mr. Rangel brought up the issue while he discussed his belief the country needs to be more open to immigrants and posited there are many conservative opponents to immigration reform because the G.O.P. and its constituents are not sufficiently diverse.

“All you have to do is take a picture of Republicans and a picture of Democrats and it’s as though you’re talking about two different countries,” Mr. Rangel said.

Politicker asked the congressman for his take on the African-American members of the Republican Party. Read More

By David Freedlander 9:01pm

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Monumental 5 Press Conference

Charles’s Charge: For New Barron, Mugabe, Khadafi Questions Off Limits

Charles Barron has a message: Do Not Be Afraid.

The three-term City Council member and now candidate for Congress stood outside of a senior citizen center in Starrett City on Friday and waited for two people who seemed to symbolize a dramatic change in fortune for him.

One was a reporter for The New York Times, who the next day wrote a front-page local section story that described Mr. Barron as “surging” in his campaign against Hakeem Jeffries, and the other was Ed Towns, a 30-year incumbent who shocked the political world when he abruptly announced his retirement, and then, even more abruptly, announced that he was backing Mr. Barron to replace him. Read More

By David Freedlander 4/04/12 6:55am

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Rick Santorum Announces Run For Republican Presidential Nomination

The Return of the Native: Santorum Comes Home, But Do Pennsylvanians Still Pick Rick?

BUTLER, PA.—Western Pennsylvania, land of coal, sharp-rising hills, shuttered mines. It is a part of the country that Rick Santorum isn’t so much from; it is a part of the country that Rick Santorum is. It was at the Somerset County courthouse, an hour to the south and east of Pittsburgh, that Mr. Santorum announced that he would run for president. It was to western Pennsylvania that Mr. Santorum’s grandfather had come to escape fascist Italy, spending a lifetime toiling away in the mines—a story that Mr. Santorum has repeated at nearly every campaign stop since that morning on the courthouse steps two years ago.

In speeches, Mr. Santorum rhapsodizes about the area, calling it the perfect place to grow up, telling voters, “I don’t have Wall Street experience, but I have experience growing up in a small town in western Pennsylvania, growing up in a steel town.”

He learned everything, he says, “growing up with folks who worked in the mills and the mines in western Pennsylvania.” Read More