Rangel Somewhat Less Certain About a Clinton Victory

Charlie Rangel was busy yesterday morning.

On his way to speak at three churches uptown within 90 minutes, Rangel made an unscheduled stop at West 155th Street, where Clinton supporters were kicking off a 61-block march north.

“Okay, what a gorgeous day,” said Rangel when he emerged from his Cadillac, surrounded by campaign volunteers and reporters.

When I asked what this primary meant to him personally, Rangel said, “At my age, I don’t get too personal.”

Unlike the winner-take-all rules in the Republican primaries, the Democratic Party awards presidential delegates proportionately, based on the outcome in each congressional district. And although Clinton is expected to carry New York State during Tuesday’s primary, Rangel’s district is among the handful that Barack Obama’s campaign hopes to win.

Rangel sidestepped the opportunity to define victory Tuesday as either winning the popular vote or delegate count.

“Victory is being at the inauguration and celebrating the victory of Hillary Clinton,” he said. “Anything short of that is for statisticians and reporters that, you know, need to be excited about things.” He added, “Winning a district here, a state here and quite frankly, I never did understand the Iowa and New Hampshire stuff, but I do understand being sworn in and being at the White House.”

One radio reporter suggested that Rangel had deliberately avoided predicting any sort of definitive victory for Clinton on Tuesday.

“I don’t know," Rangel responded. "I thought so, but I don’t want to say that publicly because I’m not that certain. But I had thought, really, that we would have wrapped it up before now.".

“What we know is she is going to win in the congressional district!” yelled City Councilman Miguel Martinez, which stirred the crowd into fits of sign-waving and screaming, effectively ending the question-and-answer portion of Rangel’s tour.