by Glenn Thrush
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The quotable, powerful dean of the New York congressional delegation, Charlie Rangel, was in South Carolina stumping for Hillary Clinton today and boy was he missing Harlem.
Asked if he was alarmed by a poll showing Barack Obama winning only ten percent of the white Democratic vote, Rangel shot back in an affably combative way: “I’m not a South Carolinian –I don’t know if the goddam Civil War is over here or not—what are u asking me? I’m not a historian.”
Nor was he too impressed with recent migration of New York retirees to the state.
“Boy, you should appreciate New York,” he told a reporter in a chilly parking lot at Benedict College. “You take New York for granted, you know, elevators don’t work, people don’t show up on time, there are no schedules, you don’t know where you are going next, hey, it’s your life —hey, that’s New York. New Yorkers, old timers, are leaving to relax down here – if I retired down here I would lose my goddam mind!”