Why didn't Corey Booker do better in the primaries?

[Stinky The Clown]

Serious question. No agenda in asking.

I like the guy. I think he's smart. I think he's on the right side of most issues. I really don't get why he never got much support.

[LakeArenal]

1. Personally, his stand against Al Franken eliminated him for me from the beginning.

[Skittles]

2. why didn't anyone do better in the primaries

too many people decided only one person could do the job

[ms liberty]

7. This, right heee. n/t

[Adelante]

9. That's right nt

[Cha]

12. Yeah, we only need one candidate.. that's Democracy for ya.

[Skittles]

13. yes

it most certainly is not perfect

[Cha]

18. Especially when the magats do everything possible to Suppress Votes.

[Skittles]

19. and Russia helps them

yup

[handmade34]

3. vegan

seems trite but the public can't cope with alternative eating habits...

[R B Garr]

4. Seems like he miscalculated in some of his attacks. nt

[elleng]

5. Dunno, waiting to see what DUers say;

I've liked him for a long time.

Too much 'lovingkindness?'

[JI7]

6. Same reason Harris, Beto, Buttigieg, and many others didn't do well

People were mostly supporting Biden. People didn't seem to be that interested in looking into newer candidates.

They were familiar with Biden and mostly focused on removing Trump.

The names I mention have supporters that would be the same ones that would support Biden also do Biden would have had to get out before many people seriously started to look at others.

[Skittles]

8. I think the race would have been different with covid

yup

[a kennedy]

10. His campaign was the only one I gave money to......

I really liked him.

[Xolodno]

11. No one reason.

1. You have Biden and everyone is comfortable with him.

2. Sanders and Warren effectively split one wing of the party and rendered it pointless. Not going to get enough votes there.

3. He's a bit green. Not enough people know him. Obama would have had the same issue, but when you speak at the Convention, you are going to get noticed. He hasn't had that chance yet. To draw a comparison, Reagan lost to Ford...but after he got a national audience at the convention, he had Republicans wondering why they weren't trying to elect him.

4. Did you see how many people were on the Dais? You are going to get lost in that with not enough publicity. Add to that, you can't expose your views that could garner supporters with so little time and limited questions.

In the future, I won't be surprised if he makes it to the White House or gets close. He's still building his brand, give it time. With that said, I do see a future collision. Gavin Newsome has been getting a lot of national attention and he has also been building his brand (even Trump praised him at one point, go figure).

I can easily see him taking Fienstien's seat once she retires...shoot, for all we know, she agreed to just keep it warm for him. Even my Republican friends (they call themselves independent...but we all know the real truth) say, "Shit, Newsome takes charge and gets shit done, he's probably going to be President one day".

[KentuckyWoman]

14. The establishment seems to pick who they want before it starts.

I felt like the establishment picked Hillary and Obama was an upset.
I felt like Carter could have won a 2nd term but they abandoned him.
I felt after the fact they knew Edwards had real problems and made sure he would not be nominee - ever.

At some point the media decides who they want and starts to shift all the coverage. That's partly how the world got DJT.....

I'm not at all an establishment person. Just saying what my perception is from the outside.

[herding cats]

15. We had so many candidates.

Just my opinion. My first, second and third dream choices going in were obviously not going to be the top pick. Which I'm fine with in the end of this cycle. I may have slipped them some cash, but even I knew they'd end up fading before my eyes. We had a massive field of amazing talent this round.

[brush]

16. He was just another candidate who didn't really distinquish himself from the rest.

Last edited Thu Jun 18, 2020, 12:20 AM - Edit history (1)

It came down to pragmatism—who could beat trump. Sanders and Warren were going to be painted as socialists and that wasn't going to fly when you got right down to it. The rest, including Booker, had good points, all very similar Dem positions on things but nothing really to get that excited about.

It came down to, as it usually does in this party, who black people figured out who could win, and it was Biden and his connection to Obama.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

25. Good point... No one really distinguished themselves because

They all acted like trump didn't even exist. So a dozen+ people arguing about minute differences and people watching thinking what in the hell... Don't you people see the MONSTER in the room? And the non-dems thinking "Well if Dems won't even disparage trump, he must not be that bad."

[Skittles]

29. uh, no

seriously

if anything, too many people acted like there was only one candidate who could beat Trump and it was always nonsense....I think the primaries were held now the outcome would be different

[Laura PourMeADrink]

30. Agree with last sentence, but not sure I understand

your point? To me, there was little mention of trump. Politics 101 - Half the time, introduce yourself, half the time, show how you are different than trump. Instead they argued among themselves about minutea.

Always amazes me that people don't just say, " I am 100% for X, naturally, the details will be worked out in committees and floor debate."

All that said, how in the world do you do that in what 3 minutes? When you've been posed a specific inane question.

[Hortensis]

32. "Amazes me that people don't just say, "I am 100% for X,

naturally, the details will be worked out in committees and floor debate."

Me too. Often. Some really don't seem to care how how government works. Including the tiny detail you mention that presidents try to cooperate and coordinate with congress but do not legislate! Congress legislates and decides those details.

These debates practically demanded the candidates "come through" with legislative promises. The candidates can't spend their 3 minutes explaining the functions of the branches of government.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

34. That might be where we need a super strong DNC chair?

Actually, I have no idea who set the rules ?Network/sponsor/DNC? So many good candidates just got doomed. And emcees saying things like " Do you all agree with what Bernie or Warren or Biden says about X, Y, or Z, you have 3 minutes". Tailor made for all the contenders to just drift away into oblivion.

We as a party (their party too) and as a country, would be better served with "You've got 10 minutes, tell us the most important things you believe in and what would you prioritize if elected? ". And "you've got 10 minutes, tell us how you are different than the Republicans? trump?"

Your...
"These debates practically demanded the candidates "come through" with legislative promises"

Bet no one remembers a single word of it.

[Hortensis]

35. Agree. End amap these media-provided debates. Can't force

CNN and Fox not to put them on or the candidates from using them. But they're intrinsically corrupt, designed to put on a "good" show, i.e., encouraging, even demanding attacks and defenses, playing to what viewers think they want to hear, instead of what we need to.

We need something more like what the League of Women Voters once provided -- earnest attempts to help the electorate evaluate them. The candidates themselves were also behind getting rid of potentially dangerous flubs in favor of something safer and more like free advertising.

A fix should be part of public financing.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

36. You made me think. Perhaps the term "debate" doesnt

even fit when it's people who hold the same basic beliefs? Much more applicable when you are down to just two people with completely opposite beliefs.

Maybe you and I could volunteer to fix this all.

In 2024, if we have lost, we will have the same problem. If we have won, and governed, suppose Biden's VP will be presumptive nominee??

[Hortensis]

38. If we lose this one, it may have been our last

genuine election. Or perhaps we'll realize in retrospect that 2012 was, and that a RW authoritarian cabal had been consolidating its power.

But, yes, what a great point about the dysfunction of a combative format when people share the same basic beliefs and variations on much the same goals.

I NOW think that these should always include discussion of what the candidates' principles and beliefs are. Not programs, the principles underlying them. What "equality," "pursuit of happiness," "promote the general welfare," "individualism" mean to Democrats, and how they should be applied by government.

We really need that: discussions that help us and everyone else understand who we are and what we believe in by examining our candidates' beliefs. So we can be strong and proud in our beliefs and put a permanent end to our enemies defining us instead.

Really good point, Laura.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

39. It would certainly root out those who lack passion. I really

I miss people like Ted Kennedy and Mario Cuomo who could make you cry and were so good at evoking emotion and expressing what liberalism is about.

Somewhere along the line, our side started buckling to those who made "liberal" a dirty word.

[Hortensis]

40. Yup. 1980-90s for "liberal," who around then forgets the attacks?

But it's coming back. Very few know what it means, of course, or everyone would be claiming to be liberal, including most conservatives in those ways they still value. They have no idea that the (individual) freedom they're always yammering about is an intensely liberal concept deeply embedded in their own beliefs.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

41. Hope it does! Here's a good example.

Link to tweet

?s=19

[Hortensis]

42. :) Blue Dog Tim Ryan doing a great job demonstrating

the liberalism that underlies traditional American ideals.

Even among the conservative idiots who vote against themselves, clueless that their traditional (liberalism-inclusive) conservative ideals have been purged from their party.

[LeftInTX]

17. His horrible Spanish!!!

It was bad

Someone said it was actually Portuguese other people said it was from the beginning of this Stevie Wonder song

[TheBlackAdder]

20. Everybody's jealous that he's dating Rosario Dawson!

.

.

[Strelnikov_]

21. Saw him three times here in Iowa

Guy can rock a speech. Also handled a heckler at the State Fair really well.

It was a crowded field, Bernie and Elizabeth had 45% or so in Iowa locked down, so it was a scrum for the rest of the candidates. Pete, Amy . . both impressive. Andrew also came on strong at the end.

How we ended up with Biden is beyond me. It is what it is.

[grantcart]

22. After 3 1/2 of riding with daily DUIs everyone went for the designated driver.

[Hortensis]

37. Really? 50 points ahead long before he announced,

ALWAYS far ahead after he did because he was the big favorite, plain and simple.

Everyone else spending months trying to break out of a second tier that never approached competitive, while a strong majority of voters watched and said, "No, I still like Biden best." That's how. It's what happened to Sen. Booker.

If things had gone terribly wrong, if Democrats had "shot themselves in the head" again, someone a minority were very enthusiastic about could have been our nominee, leaving most of the rest wondering how we ended up with him or her instead of Biden or a half dozen others.

You don't have to want Biden himself to at least appreciate that, as a party engaged in a giant battle, we caught a big break with a candidate who combines great familiarity across the political spectrum, genuine liking and trust across much of the political spectrum, and very reassuring experience (8 busy years in the WH -- who ever has that?) to create real comfort with the idea of him as president.

And maybe consider the value of comfort and trust in extremely anxious, unhappy, destabilized times?

[Sewa]

23. He jumped in too early

He got lost in the mix as others announced their candidacy.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

26. And Beto too late. Looking back, the debates were a joke

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. Totally surface but important to woo people initially

He gives off this nervous energy and he stares with his eyes bulging. It is a total image thing. Not what he's saying. Not what Warren saying either. Both brilliant. But people as a whole want someone who is maybe a 4 and sometimes a 10. Not 9 all the time. It makes them feel uncomfortable.

[pecosbob]

27. There is a bias in most of the country toward most pols from New York, New Jersey and Chicago

What many around the rest of the country think of is people like Rahm Emmanuel...Chris Christy...Rod Blagojevich...ugly machine politics.

[ecstatic]

28. I was rooting for him initially, but his message was way too nice

And didn't quite fit the moment. Then at the debates, he couldn't pick a persona and stick with it. I think Biden and Booker would have been the perfect combo to catapult us through 2032. Yikes, can't believe I'm referencing 2032!

[NewJeffCT]

31. Booker's star was on the rise in 2017

when he hammered Jeff Sessions during the confirmation hearings. Supposedly, Bannon and others close to Trump considered him a big threat to 2020.

However, the Kushner run NY Observer ran a very deceptive front page article that conflated Booker voting against a Sanders sponsored senate resolution on pharmaceutical imports to his having some donors who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. (He's from NJ - there are hundreds of thousands of people that work in Pharma/Pharma related industries in the tri-state area) So, even though Booker voted for a very similar resolution sponsored by another Senator, some in the Sanders crowd bought the Observer BS and turned against Booker strongly and took many liberals/progressives with them.

(FYI, Booker's lifetime voting record is rated as more progressive than Sanders' record)

https://progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?topic=&house=senate&sort=crucial-lifetime&order=down&party=

[Codeine]

33. In a crowded field one needs to stand out.

There’s nothing about him that made him particularly compelling or exciting, not in a way that stood out among all those other folks.