Cory Booker: As Long As The Conversation Is About Donald Trump, He's Winning

[uawchild]

Sen. Cory Booker warns his fellow Democratic presidential candidates not to fight President Trump "on his turf, in his terms."

In an interview aired Sunday with CNN's Jake Tapper, Booker warned: "As long as the conversation is about Donald Trump, as long as I can turn on my TV and coast through channels and see him being talked about in every single interview, he's winning."
I think we're going to be defined as a party not by what we stand against, but by what we're for. And I want my Democratic Party now not even to be defined simply as trying to beat Republicans at a time where we need to unite Americans back to a sense of common purpose and common cause.

I do not think this is a time that we need to fight fire with fire. I ran a fire department. It's not a really good strategy. I walked into one town hall, and a guy puts his arm around me and says: "I want you -- I want to punch -- I want you to punch Donald Trump in the face."

And I turned to him and said: "Hey, man, that's a felony. And us black guys, we don't normally get away with those things that often."

Let's sit down and let me tell you why the best strategy right now is doubling down on the best of who we are, not the worst, by talking about love and a beloved community, and not the kind of Twitter trash-talking and trolling that we hear from the White House right now.

And I know Donald Trump wants us to try to fight him on his turf, in his terms. What's needed right now is not more of that. We didn't beat Bull Connor by taking bigger dogs and more powerful water hoses. We -- we won that expanding the moral imagination of this whole country about who we are and who we must be going forward.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/05/cory_booker_as_long_as_the_conversation_is_about_donald_trump_hes_winning.html

[elleng]

1. He's right, As Long As The Conversation Is About Donald Trump, He's Winning.

[IcyPeas]

2. Well... who is going to tell the media to quit it?

cover other news, other candidates, people who tell the truth? CNN, MSNBC..... they all do it. How does one fight that ? How do we get the message out if no one will cover it?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

3. Truth!! Bring it Cory!!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Hortensis]

4. As long as the conversation is about Trump, Sen. Booker isn't winning.

Trump is sucking the media air out of more candidacies than just Booker's. It's a real problem that candidacies rise and fall on the venal, self-serving currents of the media. But at least this got Booker some attention that talking about issues didn't.

Booker backs 'Medicare for All' but pledges 'pragmatist' approach

... Despite his support for the proposal, the New Jersey Democrat told CNN host Jake Tapper that his experience as mayor of Newark, N.J., taught him, "You don't let your purity of what you're looking for undermine urgent results needed right now for the people in your community.

"I stand by supporting Medicare for All," he said. "But I'm also that pragmatist that when I'm chief executive of the country ... I'm going to find the immediate things that we can do." ...

"We're not going to pull health insurance from 150 million Americans who have private insurance that like their insurance." ... "It's going to have to be a pathway to getting there that is going to start with the commonsense things that can unite Americans," he said

Booker predicted a big hurdle would be gridlock in Congress even if Democrats prevail in November 2020.

"I believe, if we're designing our system, Medicare for All is the right way to go," he said. "But I'm also realistic to say — and you know this — when I become president, we may have only maybe a 50-50 tie in the Senate. And my vice president, whoever she is, is going to have to get a lot of exercise going to the Senate and breaking ties. We are going to have to do things that might get me toward my goal of expanding access and lowering costs.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/05/cory-booker-medicare-for-all-1302505

Senator Booker supports an MfA that, in accepting the needs and wishes of the people who'd have to live with it, is very different from the no-choice version Sanders would impose.