Kudos to former Attorney General Mike Mukasey who, on the January 15th iteration of Journal Editorial Report on Fox News, said what many were thinking. Yes, Senator Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) unprecedented testimony against prospective Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was the launch pad for Booker’s 2020 Presidential campaign.
Jersey We Have a Problem
On the surface, Cory Booker is tailor made for a Democratic Presidential run in the post-Clinton era. Booker satisfies former Senate majority leader and fitness expert Harry Reid’s requirement that any black person running as a Democrat for the White House be “light skinned” with “no negro dialect” unless “he wanted one” (presumably, Reid wouldn’t support a black female running as a Democrat for the White House). Booker satisfies soon to be former
Vice President Joe Biden’s preference that any black Democrat running for the Presidency be a “mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Biden would probably be okay with an attractive black woman running for the job given his proclivity for touchie-feelies when presented with the ladies.
Booker’s educational history is impressive. At Stanford he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Masters in Sociology. Booker brought home his law degree from Yale. And, like Bill Clinton, Cory Booker attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Whether Booker smoked and didn’t inhale during his college years is unknown, but certainly the Democrats could script that into his narrative if they felt they need to appeal to the choom gang.
Unlike Hillary Clinton – who, during the 2016 campaign required twelve staffers working over the course of twelve hours and ten drafts to compose a single tweet – Cory Booker embraced social media early on and is almost as agile using Twitter as Donald Trump.
All of that is nice, but it’s not going to be good enough to push Booker to the head of 2020’s Democratic ticket. Cory Booker’s got problems.
A Tale of Two Directions
Cory Booker’s biggest problem is trajectory – the one he’s followed and the one the Democratic Party is following. Perhaps a recent item from Vox sums it up best:
“This is classic Booker – stand out front on feel-good social issues, regardless of his past positions, and align with big money everywhere else…Booker has long faced criticism on the left for cultivating the elite financial ties that much of the Bernie Sanders wing despises.”
The above was written following Booker’s testimony against Sessions, and a subsequent vote Booker cast against an amendment to a piece of legislation. The amendment in question was sponsored by Senators Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) authorizing Americans to buy prescription medications in Canada. (Interesting isn’t it, that Democrats would come up with something like this but they won’t support your ability to purchase health insurance across state lines in America?). Cory Booker voted against two of the hard left’s darlings.
Sanders is largely a known quantity. No doubt he’ll be back in 2020, assuming he’s able. Klobuchar isn’t too much different. Before Trump was elected, MSNBC and The New Yorker once opined she’d make a good Supreme Court justice. The New York Times ran a piece identifying her as a possible first female President of the United States (the article was a panicked 2008 item that pondered, if not Hillary Clinton who? tee hee hee). Klobuchar is a kook.
As are today’s Democrats. They are no longer the party that once put relatively stable if left-of-center people on ballots. Today’s Democrats are the result of a political ideology that has followed a divisive path across our society, hyper-hyphenating people down based on their outward attributes while excusing the content of individual character, and turning a blind eye towards harsh global realities staring us all in the face.
Today’s Democrats are Black Lives Matter. They are Fight for $15. They are political correctness. They are the selfie-obsessed Kardashianistas, and the man-bun-wearing stoners, that have no clue about life and instead hide behind the tired mantra “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” Today’s Democrats are the precious little snowflakes that held cry-ins on college campuses on election night if they weren’t burning police cars in their ever more frequent and violent public tantrums.
Cory Booker’s record doesn’t quite fit with these kinds of people. Booker’s political history is pretty tame when laid side by side with people that think bathroom accessibility and gender pronouns are the most pressing issues in a world in which ISIS is pushing videos of war prisoners being burned alive.
Jim Webb
Before I go down this road, understand that I’m not saying Cory Booker is just like Jim Webb. I’m saying that compared with today’s Democrats, both Booker and Webb trend moderate to conservative.
Back in 2015, when Presidential candidates were assembling, the only Democrat that gave me pause was Jim Webb. Had he emerged as the Democratic front-runner, he’d have been a formidable candidate for Donald Trump or any Republican to beat. Jim Webb:
– Webb served as a Marine Corps officer and was highly decorated for combat action. His awards included the Navy Cross, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts.
– Under President Reagan he served as Secretary of the Navy.
– He taught at the Naval Academy.
– He won an Emmy.
– As a Senator he advocated a review of what he perceived as iniquitous drug sentencing laws.
– As a Senator he was often at odds with President Bush over Iraq, and he sponsored legislation to limit any potential US military action in Iran.
Jim Webb would have been a serious contender in the general election but for the Democrats. Webb left the 2016 primaries because of his dissatisfaction with the direction of the Democratic Party. That’s the problem Cory Booker would face were he to formally begin his run in 2019.
As mayor of Newark, Booker was pro-police and sought to hire more police officers to reduce crime in the city. While Booker is good at left-wing street theater, his record doesn’t appeal to the hard left. That’s where the Democrats are headed during the Trump-era, further and further to the left and away from more moderate voices like Booker.
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