file photo by Boyd Loving
Politico: Cory Booker, liberal celebrity?
By MANU RAJU | 9/8/13 7:06 AM EDT
NEWARK, N.J. — Ambitious and Ivy League-educated, he’s a young African-American Democrat calling for a new era of post-partisanship in Washington.
Sound familiar?
But Cory Booker — who would be just the fourth popularly elected black senator if he wins — says he “would never want to be the next Barack Obama.”
“No,” Booker said flatly when asked if he could see himself in the White House someday. “I can see myself in a house painted white one day and get out of the house I’m in right now.”
The 44-year-old Newark mayor doesn’t want to follow in Obama’s footsteps — at least that’s what he claims. But as he appears poised to become the next New Jersey senator in the Oct. 16 special election, the two-term mayor may end up voting well to the left of the president — and become the biggest Democratic celebrity in town.
In a wide-ranging interview here, Booker said he’s opposed to trimming benefits on entitlement programs, even as the president has considered doing so as part of deficit talks. He said the bad actors from the 2008 financial crisis should “absolutely” go to jail, even as the administration has yet to put shackles on top Wall Street executives. Booker “absolutely” supports medical marijuana, even as the president is reluctant about legalizing it.
And Booker added that he’s deeply skeptical about military engagement in Syria, even as Obama calls for strikes against the Bashar Assad regime.
(Also on POLITICO: Booker: ‘My sexuality is not an issue’)
“My default position is against military engagement,” Booker said, though he cautioned he had not been privy to classified intelligence on Syria. “When it comes to my values, I’m a person who believes that America should do everything it can to promote, maintain and ensure peace.”
During his time in Newark, Booker has sparked liberal ire over his friendship with GOP Gov. Chris Christie, rankled some local Democrats and infuriated the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg and his inner circle. But despite that, Booker could very well be exactly what Democrats in Washington want: a liberal celebrity. Democratic leaders are eager for Booker to hit the fundraising circuit, stump for their candidates and energize their party in a way that virtually no other Senate Democrat can effectively pull off.
In some ways, Booker may end up being the Democrats’ version of Marco Rubio: an attractive, eloquent and press-savvy pol whose core beliefs are firmly in line with his base — but who may break from his party from time to time.
While Booker’s style has irked some Democrats, he has only sparingly broken with the left , like on school vouchers and education reform. Asked to identify the issues in which he splits from his party in Washington, Booker couldn’t do it. “In some ways, you’re going to have to tell me that. I know where I’m passionate, and I don’t first ask, ‘Does my party agree with this or not?’”