'We still believe in America': Booker takes patriotism to the North Country

PLYMOUTH, N.H. — New Jersey Senator Cory Booker traveled to the North Country on Sunday afternoon for the last of five events over the weekend in New Hampshire. On the front lawn of a rustic inn in Plymouth, New Hampshire, Booker veered away from policy specifics and espoused an optimistic patriotism, born of his rock-solid faith in "the best of who we are."

"We can talk politics all you want," Booker began his speech, "but I want to talk to you about my heart and my spirit for a little bit because we are a nation that has seen campaigns where the party with a better 15-point plan doesn't win," a seeming reference to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker spoke for 20 minutes before taking questions from the audience of 50-100 people at the Common Man Inn in Plymouth, New Hampshire for an additional 20 minutes.

With a high-energy delivery in the hot afternoon sun, Booker told the story of his family's efforts to move into a white neighborhood in Bergen County, New Jersey. He said his parents encountered racial discrimination from homeowners and real estate agents, who would lie to them that the house was recently sold or taken off the market. 

But what Booker took away from the experience was not anger or disillusionment with America over unfulfilled promises. He said his parents worked with a group of activists and pro bono lawyers to obtain evidence against the real estate agencies and buy a house in the neighborhood. "They found folks like you all who meet on the weekends, proud patriots," he said. "It was mostly white folks who said we are going to show you what America is."

He said that the actions of the young pro bono lawyer who spearheaded the efforts exemplified one of many "moral moments" that transformed the country in the 1950s and 1960s. He said such "moral moments" are demanded from ordinary people again today. "It's time that we do impossible things again," he added near the end of his speech. "I'm running for president because I believe in us."

"No matter what happens, we still believe in America," he said.

While Booker acknowledged that most Democratic voters are focused on finding a candidate that can defeat President Donald Trump, he said the way to defeat "demagogues" is by "calling to the moral imagination of a nation, calling to the conscience of a country." He ran through a list of such figures who he said were defeated that way: anti-communist Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, radio host and Nazi sympathizer Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s and segregationist Birmingham, Alabama police chief Bull Connor.

Following in the footsteps of the civil rights, workers rights and women's suffrage movements, Booker said that his campaign would mobilize "a new American majority," organized around "this core American value that we are at our best when we invest in each other."

Only then did Booker pitch several of his policies. He touched on infrastructure first, referencing the longtime effort to connect Nashua and Manchester with a commuter rail line before telling the audience that the Northeast Corridor is 30 minute slower than it was in the 1960s. He next pivoted to education and lamented the United States "used to believe ardently that we were distinguished on the planet as being the country that believed anybody from anywhere can achieve anything."

Booker projected his voice without a microphone to a group of people circled around him in the hot afternoon sun and several groups clustered under shady trees and sitting on the porch of the inn.

His signature policy proposal arrived midway through the speech, embedded within a discussion of taxes and inequality. Booker touted his plan for a child savings account that would give $1,000 a year to every baby born in America, "no matter who you are, what your background." He said his plan would allow low-income kids in New Hampshire to go to college and buy a home.

Although not placed at the top of his speech, Booker's child savings account proposal, designed to close the racial wealth gap, tied together his "we will rise" motif and his patriotism. "This generation of Americans again will rise up and show the world that this nation is a nation that defies gravity," he later said.

Yet the relative lack of emphasis upon the plan, the most ambitious offered by the Booker campaign, betrayed a central dilemma of his campaign, which has hovered just below the top tier despite a large staff in New Hampshire. How can candidate stand out in a crowded field without becoming defined by a single issue or policy area?

Alice Pearce, an undecided voter from Woodstock, New Hampshire, said before the speech that she liked Booker's message "because he's talking about respect," but noted that other top-tier candidates all have "something distinctive" about them. She said Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has distinguished herself with her policies, California Senator Kamala Harris with her debate performance and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg with his age and intelligence.

In his willingness to take an optimistic message to the North Country and his quasi-spiritual language about the American people, Booker approached something distinctive. "It's really important to understand the soul of the people here," his New Hampshire press secretary, Alexandra De Luca, said.

"You can't lead the people unless you love the people," Booker said.

This work is made possible by the Russell H. Bostert Memorial Fellowship at Williams College.