NEWARK — In the city he once led as mayor, Cory Booker presented his non-stop, high-energy, urgent case for a broad political changes in America— while launching a political campaign that, by the necessity of its slow start, has to be about later. For the Booker campaign, the time is now and later; today and tomorrow.
“There is no ‘wait’ because we stand on the shoulders of giants — generations before us who did not wait,” Booker said, before his adopted hometown crowd.Booker is polling in the single-digits, and his campaign has raised less money than some other candidates, including a fellow former mayor of a city a third of the size of his own, something one of the most popular figures in the US Senate could not have expected.
Pro-Booker strategists say privately that the crowded primary will necessitate an emphasis on coalition-building across local communities in the early-voting states, as opposed to only playing up Booker’s political talent. Running that way, the strategist supporting Booker said, posed a challenge that could be misconstrued as a weakness: Booker needs time to get people to know him and who he really is, fighting a narrative sometimes spoken that he is a phony.
Booker was explicit in 2013 that he wanted to go to Washington to work on criminal justice policy, and has constantly framed criminal justice as a path to wider societal empathy, rather than as a means to assuage black voters’ concerns they’re not being listened to.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy spoke about environmental justice, an issue that Booker has emphasized in his background as a mayor of an urban center. In a brief interview with BuzzFeed News, Murphy, who endorsed Booker back in February, was asked if his candidate had enough time to make a campaign that’s emphasizing patience actually work. “Who, Cory?” he said, entering the Booker campaign’s press area, before saying that he believed he could, “100%.
he’s my favorite candidate
Booker has to be the most clueless High Yellow since 0bama.
😴 wait was he talking?