Jonathan Tasini, who has switched primary targets from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to Rep. Charlie Rangel, released a video this morning accusing the veteran Harlem lawmaker for saying one thing and doing another when it comes to the war in Afghanistan.

“I see Charlie Rangel is playing the typical Washington game, which is: Tell the votere one thing and act differently in Washington,” Tasini says. “And I think people in the 15th Congressional District have seen enough of that behavior from the incumbent.”

“Just a few days ago Charlie rangel said in a video that he thinks we should leave Afghanistan and we should not be spending money on that war.”

“The problem is that Charlie Rangel just voted, along with many Democrats for billions of dollars more for the Afghanistan War, and he will not face another vote on the Afghanistan War until after the Sept. 14th primary. This is unconscionable.”

Tasini has always been staunchly anti-war. His main focus when he ran an unsuccessful primary challenge against then-US Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2000 was his opposition to the Iraq War and the fact that she had voted in favor of it.

He wraps up the video by saying voters have a choice between voting for someone like him, who has always been against the war and won’t ever vote in favor of funding it and “the same old game from Washington incumbents, from people who tell you something when they’re running for re-election…but when they’re back in Washington, they vote completely differently.”

At a time when the economy and jobs pretty much top the list of voters’ concerns in every poll I’ve seen for months now, I’m not sure the war is an issue that resonates, although it may serve to rally the left – a bloc on which Tasini is counting in the primary.

Of course, he’s not Rangel’s only primary opponent, and the more competition there is, the better it is for the incumbent, generally speaking.

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