Is Cory Booker More Sizzle Than Steak?

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker marked the beginning of Black History Month by jumping into the 2020 presidential race.

Booker strikes me as someone with more sizzle than steak. He does have a propensity to grandstand in Senate confirmation hearings as he did when he testified against his then Senate colleague Jeff Sessions after his appointment to Attorney General, yelling at DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and invoking Spartacus during the Kavanaugh hearings.

Fair or not, I think Booker will be compared to Barack Obama and if that happens he will fall short.
It should be said that Booker has far more extensive experience at the electoral level than Obama had when he ran in 2008. Indeed, Booker could be called a career politician having spent the better part of two decades as an elected official first as a member of Newark's city council before being elected its mayor in 2006. Booker entered federal politics in a special Senate election in 2013. Nevertheless, unless Booker takes the bull by the horns, he will probably be perceived as a retread while Kamala Harris would be looked upon as something shiny and new.

Unlike Obama, Booker courted the pro-Israel community only to pull the rug out by supporting the Iran nuclear deal. Someone like that is hard to trust and raises red flags.

The one other thing working against him is geography. Kirsten Gillibrand is across the Hudson River in New York and if Elizabeth Warren decides to go past the exploratory committee phase then you have the Massachusetts component of the Boston-New York-D.C. corridor. If Bernie Sanders decides to run again then you have four Senators running for President from the Northeast. Whereas Kamala Harris has California all to herself.

But Booker will probably make a strong impression in the debates and could emerge as a finalist. Despite my reservations, if he were to win to the Democratic Party nomination, I wouldn't rule out voting for him in 2020.