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

[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.