Cory Booker can count on becoming Mr. Senator
OPINION - The world is waiting for Booker, and when he moves to the national scene, he is going to be successful...
I’ve never met Cory Booker, the promising young politician who is currently serving as the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. But I’d have to say that I admire him. I don’t admire Booker because I agree with his politics or even consider him to be a man of impeccable integrity. Rather, I admire him because he knows what he wants and has the ability to get it.
Booker is the kind of politician who is too big for his political britches. Inspired by Barack Obama, Booker is seeking to compete with the other black political figures that have become hot commodities for liberal interest groups. He is smart, savvy and has the ability to raise money. That is why I believe he will be a U.S. Senator within the next three years.
Booker recently turned up some eyebrows when he formed CoryPAC, a political action committee created to raise money for future campaigns. The involvement of leading political figures, such as Peter Nichols, Chief Financial Officer of the New Jersey State Democratic Committee, has led some to realize just how serious Booker is about doing big things in the future.
WATCH theGRIO’S TODD JOHNSON INTERVIEW BOOKER ABOUT HIS PROSPECTS:
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Cory has made it clear with “100 percent certitude” that he is not planning to run for the Senate in 2012. I take Booker at his word, for I sincerely hope that he doesn’t choose to tell such blatant fibs this early in his career. But the world is waiting for Booker, and when he moves to the national scene, he is going to be successful.
Cory Booker is “spiritually right” for the Senate. Seriously lacking in diversity, the United States Senate has the dubious distinction of having the same number of black members as the Ku Klux Klan. Of course their intentions are not nearly as malicious as the Klan, but they are certainly a reflection of a nation that remains loyal to a caste system that is partly based on race.
Booker is just the right candidate to become the drop in the racial bucket that the Senate needs in order to prove that its membership is colorblind. Even though one black Senator isn’t much more than zero, Booker’s success will be met with open arms and perhaps another naïve proclamation of a post-racial America.
Yet even if he is a success as a U.S. Senator, I do not expect Cory Booker to ever become president of the United States, at least not for another 20 years. “The Great Obama Experiment” was a tough test for our nation, and the notion of having two black male presidents so close together in history is simply too much for our nation to stomach.
I fully expect Cory Booker to become our nation’s next black senator. Not much will change because of his election, in large part because American politics is so racially stagnant that any person of color elected to the senate will surely become the kind of watered down black politician that we’ve all seen in the past. But even if Booker’s success lacks substance, it will be heavy on style, symbolism and perhaps even inspiration. He is destined to have a great political career, and it would have been even greater had he come along before “hope” and “change.”
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the initiator of the National Conversation on Race. For more information, please visit BoyceWatkins.com>
