Cory Booker, Super Hero

Congrats to Senator Booker for beating Strom Thurmond’s record. The record should be held by someone who spoke on the side of truth and light, and not a racist segregationist aimed at denying rights to human beings. And WOW! it’s being reported that 200 million — TW0 HUNDRED MILLION — people heard at least part of Senator Booker’s speech.

I have been a huge fan of Cory-Booker-Super-Hero for many years. He has rejected the “Superhero” designation since a lot of people applied it to him when he saved a woman from a fire, back when he was mayor of Newark. Details. This came a few months after he’d personally taken a shovel to help people clear snow from their walkways.

I heard Cory-Booker-Super-Hero speak for the first time in the summer of 2012, in Charlotte, NC. It was during the DNC, and his speech was part of a program put on by Planned Parenthood, at a remote location from the actual convention. It was a parking lot, with a stage set up, and it was drizzling. They handed out “Planned Parenthood Pink” rain ponchos, and we looked up at him on the stage. He was at the time still mayor of Newark, not yet a “name”. He wouldn’t get elected to the Senate until the following year in a special election called due to the passing of Senator Frank Lautenberg.

In his speech he explained that he moved to Newark during law school, and while later working in NYC as an attorney and simultaneously as a youth coordinator in Newark, he contemplated running for a local office in Newark.

He walked around his neighborhood, he said, and saw used needles, and trash, and people who looked desperate sitting around. He talked to neighbors and people he met walking around about what he’d like to do to improve things in the area.

One day, two older women chastised him, he related. They told him that instead of looking at what was wrong, without truly understanding what made the neighborhood tick, and with no knowledge of successes in the neighborhood, he should learn to listen. When he thought things through, he realized that as a person of privilege, he didn’t have the lived experience necessary to really understand. And so he started asking questions instead of handing out potential solutions.

You may know the story of Senator Booker’s upbringing. His parents both worked for IBM, and were amoung the first black executives at the company. This story is telling:

In 1970, they wanted to buy a house in predominantly white Bergen County, N.J. No one, it seemed, would sell to a Black family. So Booker's parents, with the help of the Fair Housing Council, found a white couple to impersonate them. That couple toured houses, placed bids and did the negotiating, all with the Bookers' secret instructions.

When it came time to close on a house in Harrington Park, Booker's father showed up, along with a lawyer. "The real estate agent got up and threw a punch at the lawyer," says Booker. "He ended up crying, 'You'll ruin this town!' -- white flight and all that." The owner immediately pulled the house off the market, but when the Bookers threatened to go to the newspapers, they got their house. Source.

To this day, Senator Booker talks about listening to his constituents. About hearing their concerns, and then thinking through ways to help. It is a lesson all people in politics should learn: don’t ask the big donors what they care about, ask the constituents¹.

What Senator Booker did on the Senate floor the other day was transformational. He told detailed stories that explained what he had heard from regular people, what the problems are, and what we, ALL OF US, need to do to move forward. One part of the speech that I especially appreciated was when he said that it was up to Congress to hold the Executive Branch accountable - I have been waiting since 20 January to hear that from someone in leadership.

In 2016, Senator Booker was my personal pick fave choice for president. Even after he dropped out, I kept his bumper sticker on my car (just in case) and mournfully removed it after election day. I hope he considers running in 2028, and before then, takes the reins from Chuck Schumer.

I close with a personal anecdote. While I was being treated for cancer, Senator Booker was in the area for a fundraiser. When he was told how much of a fan I was, and why I couldn’t be there, he made a video of himself for me. He thanked me for my support, offered prayers for my recovery, and said that even though I made everyone call him “Cory-Booker-Super-Hero” he was just a guy trying to make the world a better place for everyone, not a superhero. I treasure that video.

1. As a completely off-topic aside, the Democratic Party cares about its big donors because money matters to the party. They love people who can afford $10,000 a plate dinners, all glitzy and sparkly. Personally, I’d rather see fundraisers where it cost $5 to get in, and you received a coffee and a cookie. Because if you could get 100 people to that event, you wouldn’t make money (you might even lose money if you bought expensive cookies) but you’d get 100 VOTES. Votes are what get you elected. Listening to potential voters and being committed to making their lives better is what changes them from “potential voters” into “voters who never miss an election.” Sorry, I digress into “elections are won house by house, person by person, block by block”.