"I happen to be the other Rhodes Scholar on this stage."
Cory Booker, at the Democratic Debate
"We can't beat Donald Trump by being like Donald Trump, a guy who divides us, pits us against each other, demeans and degrades. That's not who we are. That's not what we're called to do."
Cory Booker, in New Hampshire Town Meeting
Worried about Pete Buttigieg? Cory Booker is available and ready.
I hear it from voters often. They are intrigued by Pete Buttigieg. They like that he is a Rhodes Scholar, that he is articulate and persuasive, that he talks about heartland values and social unity, that he wants to expand opportunities for the poor and middle class but doesn't seem too disruptive.
If only:
*** He were 50 and not 37. (Older would be better.)
*** He held higher office, like mayor of a bigger place or US senator. (We want someone qualified and tested.)
*** He had a better connection to black voters. (Democrats need a black turnout.)
*** He weren't married to a guy. (Americans don't really care if maybe he is gay, but it might not be ready for a two guys dancing at the inaugural ball. Not yet.)
Cory Booker is running for president.
He bridges a divide that Pete Buttigieg does not.
Both Buttigieg and Cory Booker fulfill the highest demands of the meritocratic social order. Buttigieg has credentialed himself with Harvard and Oxford, then McKinsey and military service. Booker with Stanford and Oxford, then Yale Law, then moving to black projects to do poverty law.
The meritocratic social order is a mixed-bag credential for each of them. On one hand, Americans value it. On the other hand, by having jumped through the highest of meritocracy hoops they signal, through body language of biography, that they participate in the winner-take-all social order that validates privilege.
They are the biographical versions of billionaires--the top of the top. There are 32 Rhodes Scholars per year, one in 130,000 people in their generation. It is elite, therefore a rebuke of the Democratic populist impulse.
Pete Buttigieg is stuck with that. Cory Booker is not. Cory Booker had a middle class upbringing, the son of IBM employees, but his origin story speech describes his family's problem as a black family steered away from "white" neighborhoods. After finishing at Yale, Booker describes a move to Newark to move into black projects and work in poverty law.
Bookers story is not one of escaping blackness, but embracing it.
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His stump speech is about uplift. "WE RISE," he says. His stump speech is more about values and social unity than specific policy. Detractors mock it, saying he is the kumbaya candidate. It is a fair criticism.
Booker is the direct alternative to Biden, whose shares the sentiment of white working class struggle. Booker's is the sentiment of a nation reunited, red and yellow, black and white, all precious in the sight of God and the nation. Can't we all get along?
Buttigieg got to the wizz-kid niche before Booker did, and he plugs that category. Joe Biden plugs the bigger hole, the place in the Democratic voter mind where they want an experienced, liberal, reformer whose tasks include bringing the country together.
The Hunter Biden business may well prove a fatal wound to Biden, but so far it is a slow bleed and Biden still plugs the hole. Booker remains near invisible.
In fifteen years, if Buttigieg were a senator from Indiana and had a home in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis, Buttigieg would be a stronger candidate. Booker is there now, if people noticed.
2 comments:
Sen. Booker is impressive in a field of equally impressive candidates. I think it's simply a matter of an embarrassment of riches.
Politically he's in line with the party and I would say he leans heavily towards economic and social justice advocacy. Because I think Sen. Warren has a broader agenda that includes economics and healthcare, her record with the CFPB, a demonstrable ability to work effectively with Congress, and my preference for a woman this cycle, I prefer her.
Let me share this I found:
"Booker, who is one of 25 Democrats seeking their party's presidential nomination, said that at a recent campaign event in Iowa, a former college football player put his arm around him and said, "Dude, I want you to punch Donald Trump in the face."
"And I stop in my tracks and I go, 'Dude, that's a felony, man,'" Booker said.
But Booker said Trump is someone who "hurts you" and that in response, his testosterone sometimes makes him want to strike the president, "which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is, if I did that." (USA Today)
All in all I would be thrilled with a Warren/Booker ticket for all the obvious reasons, if only to see the Senator debate Pence.
It seems that one ranking we have with the Democratic field is legislative experience, so issues are a factor. In this respect Mayor Peter is a somewhat lower preference.
Corey Booker, or do You Mean "T-Bone"?
Since Booker is going nowhere, we don't have to worry about it. But his credibility and inauthenticity would do him in just as Warren's phony Native American claim would give Trump a win if not a landslide. Warren will be stalked by "Pocahontas" while Booker would be stalked by "T-Bone", two personified fake narratives that neither could escape in a general election. AS NBC News recounted his fake-friend dribble in February 2019:
"When Booker was recounting his years in Newark, often while running for office, he used to tell people a story about a person named T-Bone, a drug dealer who had once menaced him but later came seeking his help to stay out of prison only to then recount (and cry about) his difficult childhood. T-Bone could never be found — and everyone from political supporters to the National Review tried. In 2013, when confronted about it by a Washington Post reporter, Booker went on to tell a long- winded story about how the media is quite unfair."
(See, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/cory-booker-wants-be-nicest-democrat-running-president-his-own-ncna966596). And this NBC news piece is gentle compared to reporting on the "T-Bone scandal" elsewhere.
Like Warren with exaggerated ethnic identity and Booker with fake "street-cred", both survived in their blue statewide elections for Senate. But neither would survive swing state scrutiny and Trump's incessant, crude but facially valid attacks on them.
There will be no "Little Big Horn" or "Spartacus" glory coming out of the self-inflicted, self-serving scandals by these two unelectable Democratic dubious icons.
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