The Rise of Rangel

NEW YORK -- It is a sweet coincidence of history that Charlie Rangel held his victory party at a place on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. in Harlem. Back in 1967, a suddenly virtuous Congress, appalled at Powell's shenanigans, kicked him out of the House and deprived Harlem of representation. Powell got his seat back, but Rangel knocked him off in the following Democratic primary, beginning a career that peaked here Tuesday night with his imminent succession to the chair of the Ways and Means Committee. "We have been given the gift that Adam Powell had taken away from him," Rangel said. It has taken awhile, but Harlem is back.

The "gift" is Ways and Means. Powell had Education and Labor, but Rangel has the committee chairmanship whose semi-official title starts with the word "powerful." It is the place where taxes go to be raised or lowered and where pork can be dispensed in amounts that elsewhere in the world would amount to entire governmental budgets. This domain is now Charlie Rangel's.

He will be a benevolent and fair presider, he vowed election night. The word he kept using over and over again was "fairness" or "fair," which is precisely the way he thinks the current chairman, Republican Bill Thomas of California, did not treat him. Thomas ran the panel in arrogant dismissal of the Democratic minority. This, Rangel said, is not the way he will do things.

If so, this will be a crushing disappointment to Republicans who have demonized Rangel (sometimes with his help) -- frightening widows, orphans and hedge-fund managers by saying that the Harlem congressman would raise taxes. "You've Been Warned: Rangel Promises To Raise Your Taxes If Dems Take Control," the Republican National Committee's blog announced last month. Well, the Dems have taken control and Rangel made no such promise Tuesday night. Instead, he oozed conciliation and moderation, becoming a tad fiery only when the subject turned to George W. Bush and the war in Iraq he so loathes. Rangel, unlike Bush, knows war firsthand. He won the Bronze Star in Korea.

But for all his talk of making nice toward the Republicans, the fact remains that the facts have changed. The current chairman represents a California district that is mostly white (66.8 percent) and only incidentally black (5.6 percent). This is not the case with Harlem, as you might have heard, although Rangel's district is more white than you might imagine (16.4 percent), less black than you might imagine (30.5 percent), and much more Hispanic (48 percent) than you might guess. More relevant than race, though, might be economic status. Nearly a third of the district's residents are below the poverty line.

In his remarks Tuesday night, Rangel mentioned Wilbur Mills. The name came off his lips without rancor, but it has to grate that the late Arkansan got to be Ways and Means chairman longer than anyone in history, sadly coming to ruin as a drunken skirt chaser. For Rangel, time is short. He is 76 and, as the night wore on, so did a certain look of fatigue. The tune in his ear cannot be, as it was with Mills, "Hail to the Chief." It is "September Song."

Charlie Rangel is given to flashes of candor -- he recently called Dick Cheney an SOB -- but his cruising speed is an impish avuncularness. He can make you laugh, as he did with me one day when he marched through a group of Haitian refugees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, responding to their French with a little of his own: "Chevrolet coupe," he sang out to nonplussed looks. And he can make you think, as when he discusses the America that many of us have forgotten: the poor and those who are heading that way. He would like to see the direction reversed. He would like to see a more equitable tax structure, some help when it comes to college tuition -- that sort of thing. He is, after all, a liberal Democrat.

Reading up on Rangel is instructive. The theme that keeps announcing itself is "guts." He was gutsy in Korea and he was gutsy when he took on Adam Clayton Powell -- so he will do something. But he knows the weird arc of history. The once-discredited man he beat is now a New York boulevard and Rangel himself is about to be chairman of Ways and Means. It's not true that anything is possible. It just true that Charlie Rangel can make it seem that way.