Do you ever see a person or situation and make a prediction, and then years later you turn the news on and the very thing you predicted has come true? Well, it happened to me. So, this morning, while eating my tofu potato wrap for breakfast, the news was mentioning the democratic candidates who were running for president. The list is starting to get exciting. Today an African American man, on this first day of Black History Month, has put his hat in the ring. Years before, when I heard and saw this man on, I think it was the Daily Show, I said to myself, this man is going to run for president someday. I like a lot of what he’s saying too. Now that he is running, he is my second choice so far, unless I find something I don’t like about my favorite candidate, who I can write about in March, which is Women’s History Month.
(from Princeton.edu)
This candidate is Cory Booker
who I first learned about when he was the mayor of the city of Newark, New Jersey from 2006-2013. Since 2013 he has been the junior United States Senator from New Jersey, of which he is the first African American to hold this position. He is a member of the Democratic Party. And today, February 1, 2019 (even though the post will be out later than this day) he officially announced his campaign to run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 United States presidential election.
I wanted to write about Booker because he is an interesting candidate, and there are some different things that set him apart from other candidates. I also wanted to learn more about him myself, because maybe he is my candidate, and I just don’t know it until I research more.
First, Booker is a young (for a politician), and good-looking man, who is an inspiring speaker. He was a charismatic leader and popular mayor who brought more attention to the city of Newark. I wanted to find out a little about his past, and more so, about his recent life and his positions on the issues of the day.(pic from nytimes)
(pic from nytimes) Booker was born on April 27, 1969, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Harrington Park, New Jersey, 20 miles north of Newark, New Jersey. Interestingly enough, his parents were among the first black executives at IBM. In 1991 he earned a Bachelor of arts in political science and then and Masters in sociology from Stanford. There, he was an excellent football player, made the All–Pacific-10 Academic team and was elected senior class president. He also worked on a student run crisis line helping to counsel students.
(pic from huffingtonpost) After Stanford, Booker was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, where he earned an honors degree in United States history in 1994 as a member of The Queen's College. He earned his Juris Doctor in 1997 from Yale Law School, where he operated free legal clinics for low-income residents of New Haven, Connecticut. During this time Booker was also a Big Brother with
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and was active in the National Black Law Students Association. (All this education is impressive. I’m salivating- I do have to explain that. I like education a lot; think it’s rather romantic and want more of it). After graduation, he served as staff attorney for the Urban Justice Center in New York and program coordinator of the Newark Youth Project. Besides an impressive education, his extra-curriculars weren’t too shabby either. If you want to you can look up his elections and candidacies in Newark and as a Senator.
Right now, I’d like to mention two of the unique things I mentioned I was going to say about him. One is that on the news they said he would be the first single president. That would be interesting. He was on a list of Town and Country’s 50 Eligible Bachelors in 2017.
And the other thing, which many people didn’t know, but I did because I read an article in
VegNews, a
vegan food and lifestyle magazine in which
Booker talks about his veganism. Booker has been a vegetarian, a person who eats eggs and dairy, but not fish, unbeknownst to many who may not be considering the issue of pain (fish feel pain and a person who has a vegetarian diet, but adds fish, which of course is healthier than the SAD- Standard American Diet, is called a
pescatarian. And its offensive and makes you sound ignorant, to vegetarians, like me, and possibly Booker, if you say you are vegetarian, but eat fish- STOP DOING THAT!) since 1992. In 2014, Booker began practicing a vegan diet and has expressed his vegan ethical philosophy and advocacy for animals. As a life-long vegetarian, who I hope is an empathetic person in general, I believe in compassion towards people and animals as part of my personal ethical philosophy. Booker would be the first vegan president, but not the first vegan to run for candidacy in a primary. As far as I know personally, the only other person who was vegan as well was Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who was a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2004 and 2008. If I hear about another vegan Democrat, I might have to make comments on a pattern of compassion. Just sayin’. Before I get to the issues, I’ll give you two more interesting facts I just found out. One is that he staged a 10-day hunger strike and briefly lived in a tent to draw attention to urban development issues in the city [Newark]. And the other is Booker made headlines
while Mayor of Newark for personally rescuing a freezing dog, and saving a neighbor from her burning home, sustaining second degree burns on his hand in the process. Now, let’s look at the issues, shown through Booker’s legislation, speeches, and platform for this election.
(pic from politico)
As a Senator Booker has the third most liberal voting record. Considered a social liberal, Booker supports women's rights,
affirmative action and same-sex marriage. During his five years in office, Booker co-sponsored and voted for the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (2013),worked to combat climate change, and increased funding for education. In the Senate, he has emphasized issues of racial and social justice. He supports
ending the War on Drugs. Booker also supports abortion rights. He supports a
two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. While there are a couple issues that I didn’t mention, because there is so much more information, I also didn’t mention some issues I hadn’t had time to research or I don’t care about. I am writing about the issues I care much about. This candidate might have other issues he supports that you care about more, so he is worth looking at even if the issues I’ve mentioned are not the most important to you. For more information read his book
‘United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good’
Or for
information about his presidential campaign check out his website that has a good video on it. Click on CORY 2020 to get to it.
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