Message to Charles Barron: You just weren’t fit for prime time.
That bashing-white- folks stuff might play on Pitkin Avenue, but under the big lights of Washington, where powerbrokers make big decisions about municipal aid and job creation, that kind of talk only makes you look like a lightweight.
That way of thinking didn’t find an ounce of support throughout most of New York’s 8th Congressional District, where yesterday, Hakeem Jeffries beat you like you stole something.
“The people spoke in one loud voice, and that’s why we’re going to Washington, DC,” Jeffries said at his victory party.
You remember Jeffries. He’s the other black candidate, whom you all but painted as an Uncle Tom just because he had moderate supporters.
But come on, Councilman. Could you really blame them? Some voters admire your passion, your fight-for-the-little-guy spirit, but let’s be real. No one expects Jeffries to walk into the House chamber with his arm around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Don’t expect him to bawl over the graves of any bloodthirsty, terrorist dictators.
Moammar Khadafy, Councilman? Really?
And what’s so bad about getting along?
“I think we need new young leadership,” said Elizabeth Calvin, a homeowner on Lefferts Place, right after she voted for Jeffries.
She insisted she doesn’t have anything against you, Councilman, and I almost believed her.
“This community is not just one group of people,” Calvin said. “We need someone to represent the broader base.”
She put that very nicely, don’t you think? She wasn’t saying — like others have — that you’re a race-baiting demagogue who’s wants to pass laws to lock up white people.
She just liked the other guy better.
Yvonne Zabriskie, a teacher from Clinton Hill, didn’t sugarcoat it.
“I’ve read a lot of things about his militancy,” Zabriskie said. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. He’s too radical. I don’t know how much that’s going to work.”
Zabriskie, of course, was referring to the endless stories about how you eulogized Khadafy, escorted Zimbabwe’s ruthless dictator, Robert Mugabe, into the City Council chambers and called Israel “the biggest terrorist in the world.”
Then there was this gem you delivered at a hearing on reparations.
“I want to go up to the closest white person and say, ‘You can’t understand this, it’s a black thing,’ and then slap him, just for my mental health.”
Even some of your supporters, Councilman, had reservations over that.
Joe Brown, a construction consultant, said he voted for you.
Basically, he just wanted to know if you’re more than just talk.
“The only way to find out if he’s 100 percent legitimate is to put his feet to the fire,” Brown said.
“I need to know he’s not full of hot air. I know it’s a gamble, but life’s a gamble.”
So is politics. This time, you lost.