Will Bunch sensibly asks why (if polls can be believed) New Jersey Democrats are stampeding to vote for Cory Booker in the Senate primary on August 13th to replace the recently deceased Frank Lautenberg. In particular, Mr. Bunch wants to know why Democrats are ignoring that “Booker is largely a faux liberal,” while his three opponents “have bona fide progressive credentials.”
Having grown up in New Jersey, I am less mystified about Booker’s prowess. The Garden State has a well-deserved reputation as a blue state, although it did vote for Poppy Bush back in 1988 (my first vote was for Dukakis at a Princeton elementary school). But it is not a happy history. In 1981, Sen. Pete Williams was convicted in the ABSCAM scandal of taking bribes from undercover Arab sheikhs. In 2002, Sen. Robert Torricelli dropped his bid for reelection after it was revealed that he’d taken illegal campaign contributions from a North Korean businessman. In 2004, Governor Jim McGreevey announced he was a closeted gay man and resigned in the face of sexual harassment allegations from his former lover whom he had improperly put in charge of the state’s security. In 2013, former governor and senator, Jon Corzine, was charged in a civil suit with misusing investors’ money for corporate purposes. And Cory Booker’s predecessor as mayor of Newark, Sharpe James, did 18 months in prison for fraud after rigging real estate deals to benefit his girlfriend. This is only the tip of the iceberg for the moral turpitude and outright criminality that New Jerseyans have come to expect from the Democratic Party (see, for example, Operation Bid Rig). For my entire life, Democratic elected officials have seemed more likely to resign in disgrace or go to jail than to do a good job. Gov. Brendan Byrne and Sen. Bill Bradley are two shining exceptions, and their memories are valued all the more for their comparative integrity.
Given this history in the state in general and in Newark in particular, Cory Booker comes off as a breath of fresh air. Given this history, the revelations in the New York Times piece not only look tame, they look like a vast improvement.
That doesn’t explain why New Jersey Democrats would prefer Booker to opponents who have clean records and more orthodox liberal positions on the issues. To understand that, you have to throw together a number of factors. Most Democratic votes come from the north of the state, where Booker resides. Booker is better known than his opponents and has a lot more charisma than any of them. The general opinion is that he’s been a much better mayor than his predecessor, pretty much on every level that a mayor can be judged. It doesn’t hurt that Cory Booker is black and that he has a lot of support in the black community. It also doesn’t hurt that a ton of white Democrats work on Wall Street and Madison Avenue in finance, banking, advertising, or other high-end corporate pursuits in Manhattan and thereabouts. Simply put, your typical professional white Northern New Jersey Democrat actually likes the fact that Cory Booker is friendly with Silicon Valley executives and private equity firms. If he can bring in a couple hundred million dollars of non-taxpayer money to help improve the Newark schools, that’s considered a plus.
Finally, the brief campaign is basically a Booker or anti-Booker affair, and there are three candidates dividing the anti-Booker vote.
Mr. Bunch considers it “a huge problem” that Booker is so cozy with Silicon Valley executives when part of his job as senator will be to regulate the internet and oversee communications policy. That’s a concern, certainly, but show me the Republican senator who isn’t too cozy with the energy industry or a Democrat who is independent of the public service unions. It’s a trade-off, in any case. New Jerseyans would probably like Rush Holt’s policy on internet privacy better than Booker’s, but it’s doubtful that Holt could compare with Booker’s ability to attract job producing private investment in the Garden State. Booker might also be a more effective advocate for things like gun violence control and prison reform.
In any case, New Jersey Democrats are so jaded at this point that personal integrity is more important than where a candidate lies on the sliding scale of relative progressivism. It’s like, “you agree with me on teacher’s unions, but are you going to jail?”
So, if there is a concern about Booker’s high-flying corporate friends, the concern is that he’ll do something improper or illegal on their behalf. But there isn’t anything on the record to indicate that Booker is corrupt. He’s bright, engaging, innovative, forward-thinking, and prone to acts of private heroism. It’s no mystery why Democrats think he’s good enough.
Personally, if I were still living in New Jersey, I would vote for Rush Holt. I think Holt, Pallone, or Sheila Oliver would all be good senators who would be more consistently progressive, although not necessarily as effective in the areas where Booker takes a progressive view. Rep. Holt would vote the closest to the way I would vote, but I am not a typical New Jersey Democrat.
