By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MAHATTAN — Political Strategist Basil Smikle will take on embattled incumbent State Sen. Bill Perkins in the Democratic primary for his Harlem seat, the Daily News reported Wednesday.
Smikle, 38, a former aide to Hillary Clinton and occasional consultant for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, plans to officially announce his candidacy in the next couple of weeks, the News said.
Perkins, who represents parts of Harlem, Washington Heights and the Upper West Side, has recently come under fire from his own party for his criticism of charter schools. Perkins has also gotten into trouble with Democrats for his open criticism of Gov. David Paterson and Congressman Charlie Rangel.
Despite Perkin's role in the Democratic Party as a rebel of sorts, Smikle is portraying himself as an outsider, saying in his interview with the News that he is "running as an insurgent."
While Smikle said the charter school issue would figure prominently in his campaign, he emphasized the importance of other issues, though he did not name any of them in his interview with the News.
"Clearly ed reform is a galvanizing issue in Harlem right now and upper Manhattan," Smikle told the News. "But I'm going to focus on other things as well."
Although both Perkins and Smikle grew up in New York City, neither was educated by the New York Public School System. Perkins went to Collegiate on the Upper West Side and Smikle attended Mount Saint Michael Academy, a Catholic high school in the Bronx, according to his Facebook Profile.
Both men graduated from Ivy League universities — Perkins from Brown and Smikle from Cornell.
