Cory Booker

Another hat flew into the ring this week. Cory Booker, junior senator from New Jersey, former mayor of Newark, announced his candidacy. What's noteworthy, at this point, is that except for the quixotic John Delaney, none of the candidates for the Democratic nomination are a white male. Of course, Sanders, Biden, and O'Rourke await.

I lived in New Jersey during the ascendancy of Booker, and he is a dynamic man, a good speaker, and full of action (he has rescued a freezing dog and pulled a woman out of her burning home. Perhaps he should wear a cape). But I'm just not sold on him.

As with any other Democratic candidate, he'd be a trillion times better than Trump, and I would accept his nomination wholeheartedly. But doesn't there seem something grasping about him? As I mentioned with Kirstin Gillibrand, though everyone who dares to run for president has to be very ambitious, sometimes the ambition looks like calculation.

Like most of the candidates, Booker checks all of the liberal boxes: pro-choice, pro-environment, pro-expanding Obamacare, for sensible gun laws, and vehemently for civil rights for women, minorities, and LBGTQ. Where he gets into trouble is with the pharmaceutical industry. Many pharma companies, such as Merck and Pfizer, are headquartered in New Jersey, and when a bill, introduced by Sanders, to allow the cheap importation of drugs from Canada, came up for vote, Booker sided with Republicans and killed it. Booker cited consumer safety as an issue, which the pharmaceutical companies also use. It's a troubling aspect that he may be too beholden to corporations.

This also reared it's head when Obama was running for re-election and Booker spoke up about the attacks on Mitt Romney's Bain company. "Stop attacking private equity!" Booker said, and was taken to the woodshed by the Obama campaign. The Democratic nominee should be vigilant of corporate America, not a lackey to it.

That being said, Booker is a bright, shiny candidate and would beat Trump. Anyone who can pull out the black vote, which stayed home for Hillary Clinton, bodes well. Interestingly, Booker is single. I mentioned that there are two childless candidates already running, as is Booker. But for the life of me I can't remember a major party candidate who wasn't married (Ralph Nader has never married, but didn't run on a major party). I have no idea how this will play. I think many Americans, conscious of it or not, would prefer a person with a family, to show their Norman Rockwell side. We'll see.