White Guy Challenging Jamal Bowman Is Just Living Martin Luther King's Best Dream

Yes, he cited that one MLK line.

Democratic Rep. Jamal Bowman, who was recently censured for seditious fire alarm pulling, now officially has a primary challenger. Westchester County Executive George Latimer announced his candidacy last Wednesday for New York’s 16th congressional district, which covers parts of the north Bronx and Westchester suburbs.

The 70-year-old Latimer kicked off his campaign with an ad that criticized Bowman’s position on the Israel-Hamas war. Latimer is also apparently peeved that Bowman voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed in 2021. Bowman’s been elected since then so voters in the 16th apparently don’t consider that a deal breaker. Maybe Latimer could just let that go. After all, as I noted at the time, the only way President Joe Biden signs a truly bipartisan infrastructure bill is if the more progressive members of the Democratic caucus voted against it. Not even your most superficially “moderate” Republican would ever back the same legislation as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

According to Gothamist, New York progressives are upset that Latimer is challenging Bowman at all, and they claim this will just splinter the party and not help Democrats regain control of the House. However, Latimer rightly points out that Bowman himself challenged an incumbent in 2020. That’s just politics.

“This incumbent congressman was the challenger to a prior incumbent congressman,” Latimer said. “And what does that mean? It meant that he and the people who backed him felt that there needed to be a choice. There needed to be an alternative to the incumbent at that time.”

Working Families Party co-chair Ana Maria Archila thinks Latimer should focus instead on unseating freshman Republican Rep. Mike Lawler from New York’s 17th district. I can appreciate that position, though it does seem that there’s a specific desire within the party to remove Bowman from office. That’s also just politics. No one’s entitled to a congressional seat.

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Latimer told Gothamist that he’s aware that the kids today think he’s perhaps not as with it as Bowman, who’s significantly younger and, as Ocasio-Cortez has pointed out, “was one of the first Black men to ever represent Westchester County in the United States Congress.” Latimer confessed that those arguments wound him deeply.

“It's very difficult for me to have somebody tell me, ‘Well, you know, George, you're a white guy, he's a Black guy and, you know, the demographics here …,” Latimer said. “Well, yeah, we're different. But what's the record that I have? Or as Dr. King would say, don't judge me by the color of my skin, judge me by the content of my character. What's the content of my character?”

He went on: “They're going to try to turn me into something that I'm not, and I'm going to push back on that because I think my record shows that I’m every bit as progressive as he is.”

I think quoting Republicans’ favorite Dr. Martin Luther King line doesn’t bode well for Latimer’s professed progressivism. Latimer’s launch video boasted about his “real progressive results. Not rhetoric,” and it’s true that his progressive bonafides would impress the Bartlet White House from the “West Wing.” As a state legislator, he supported same-sex marriage, welcomed migrants to his country, and helped move Westchester County’s bus fleet away from diesel fuel. And like so many similar white liberals, he has planted a flag at his feet and declared, “No further! This is as progressive as we can get without being silly. Do you want Republicans to win?”

Latimer insists that the 16th seat is safely Democratic, no matter how intense the primary becomes. However, there is a clear schism growing within the party at a time when we’d all prefer unity against fascism. Although, “unity” often requires squelching true dissent. There are no easy answers here.

(Gothamist)

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