Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Deconstructing Cory

Cory Booker has the looks, he has the charm, and he has the executive experience as mayor of Newark, New Jersey to possibly propel him to the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.  So why do I, an almost lifelong resident of Essex County, New Jersey, have a complete and utter disinterest in him?
Cory Booker should be my kind of candidate.  After all, he rose to prominence by becoming the mayor of an unlivable and ungovernable city and spending seven years in office making it . . . well, a little more livable and governable.  He has the same urban executive bona fides as Martin O'Malley; the only difference between the two, apart from their physical appearance (O'Malley has an almost full head of hair), is that Cory Booker was never governor of his home state,choosing instead after his mayoralty to go to Washington as one of New Jersey's U.S. Senators.  And during his tenure as mayor of Newark, he did get stuff done, reducing crime somewhat and getting real estate developers to re-invest in downtown.  And he even shoveled a guy's driveway out after a big snowstorm.
Of course, Newark hasn't exactly returned to its glory days, and I don't blame Booker for that.  Because, as with O'Malley in Baltimore, Booker was never going to make Newark the the nice, vibrant livable city that old-timers like my Irish uncle, who grew up in Newark, reminisce about, due to the anti-urban, pro-suburbia, pro-highway policies that persist to this day and caused American cities to rot in the first place.
So what is it about Booker that turns me off?  The fact that he shows a lack of an in-yo-face attitude that clearly identifies him as not being from Newark or even Essex County (he's from tony Harrington Park in nearby Bergen County)?  No, it's not that.
It might be because of his fantastically impossible utopian vision of bringing back a culture of love and understanding (he's definitely not a Newark native) that puts him into Marianne Williamson territory.  It may even be because of his theatrics at the Brett Kavanaugh hearings over unsubstantiated claims of Kavanaugh's support for racial profiling reported to be in previously released documents ("I am Spartacus!"). Actually, no . . . I think it's because of his ties to Wall Street.
And his ties to Big Pharma.
And his support for charter schools.  Yeah, that stuff.  All that.
President Booker?  I'll pass, thanks.  But if I ever need someone to shovel my driveway when the kid I usually get is unavailable, I know who to call.      

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