Rep. Charlie Rangel campaign strong-armed ally for endorsement Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel's campaign has a new recipe for winning friends and influencing people -- threatening them. Following a Rangel endorsement rally Saturday in East Harlem, the embattled congressman's campaign team made an unlikely confession to the New York Post -- they had strong-armed state Senator Bill Perkins for an endorsement. Perkins, a Manhattan Democrat, initially planned to back Rangel's stiffest challenger, state Senator Adriano Espaillat, in the June 26 congressional primary, Rangel's camp admitted. "I have friends all over the place, and I heard from someone he was going to support Espaillat," Rangel's East Harlem campaign manager Edwin Marcial recalled. The rumors seemed true last weekend when Perkins failed to show for a pro-Rangel Harlem Democratic confab. "When I asked [Perkins], he said, 'That's true,'" Marcial continued. "I said, 'If you don't support Charlie, I'm going to run against you,'" Marcial told the Post.