Fresh off of a spirited challenge for the 10th Congressional District this past summer, New York City Councilmember Charles Barron is now considering a run for Public Advocate in 2009. This morning, Barron informed me that given his frustration with the institutional responses to the “police brutality” issue, he believes that he could use the office of the Public Advocate as a platform for seriously dealing with issues like police abuses, racial discrimination, black-unemployment, and the like. He said that my recent challenge to him to run for public advocate, as a way of fighting for address to some of his hot-button issues, makes a lot of sense and he is now considering it. He said also that running for citywide office is so much more difficult than running for a congressional seat that he has to give it long hard thought. He will make a final decision sometime late next year, but intends to start exploring it with his main supporters and his organization “Operation Power”, ASAP.
Barron further went on to state that that he has not discarded or ruled out the idea of running against Ed Towns again, in two years. He says what is attractive about the public advocate race is that matching funds will help in one of his weak areas: fundraising.
Barron, an outspoken critic of the NYPD, has been quite visible and vocal in the latest police-killing (Sean Bell). He said that people might be angry at his predictions, that there will be an explosion in the black community if these types of incidents are not curtailed, but he insists that he is not inciting any civil disobedience (or anything of the sort) , and that he is just a social-prophet in this regard. He said that when the weatherman predicts a storm, you don’t go out and criticize him for that, you just prepare the best ways you can to withstand it and survive.
Barron, a colorful and outspoken member of the Brooklyn delegation to the council, briefly flirted with running for mayor last year. He withdrew when his fundraising effort hardly got off the ground. If he gets into the Public Advocate race, media-folks will surely have a lot of fun.
Stay tuned-in folks.