Cory Booker is wrong. Joe Biden isn't the enemy of black people. Donald Trump is.

[wyldwolf]

Cory Booker has a problem. He is the only black man running for the Democratic presidential nomination, but he’s polling far behind Joe Biden among African American voters.

It seems Booker thinks the only way he can inch his way up from the bottom tier of contenders is to knock the front-runner out of the way. So as the second Democratic debates approach this week, he has allowed his desperation to take over.

The New Jersey senator has spent much of his presidential campaign trying to convince African Americans that Biden is not their friend. According to Booker, mistakes that Biden made during 36 years in the Senate make him a liability to black people.

But most black people aren’t buying it. In a recent poll of likely Democratic primary voters in South Carolina, a state where African Americans make up the majority of those voters, Biden has 51 percent support among blacks compared with Booker’s 2 percent.

The reason is simple. Biden should not be the target.

Blacks and many other Americans are more concerned about the divisive words the man currently occupying the White House is using today. They won’t be sidetracked by taking up a cause that has no bearing on crucial issues the country is facing right now.

It would benefit Booker to stay focused as well.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/dahleen-glanton/ct-dahleen-glanton-cory-booker-joe-biden-african-americans-20190729-yypfksivcndx5eap2xrfnu5dce-story.html

Dahleen Glanton is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. She joined the Tribune from the Los Angeles Times in 1989, was a metro editor and the Atlanta bureau chief, and covered Hurricane Katrina, the Obama Presidential Center and national gun laws. A Georgia native, she writes regularly about race, civil rights and neighborhood violence

[democratisphere]

1. There is always a reason for having little or no support.

Got to know when to fold and go home.

[oasis]

2. Cory needs to quit while he's behind.

[Hachetman]

13. Quit....

I agree. Corey is my least favorite dem candidate.

[Cha]

3. That's what many of us have been saying here..

Black and White!

It seems Booker thinks the only way he can inch his way up from the bottom tier of contenders is to knock the front-runner out of the way. So as the second Democratic debates approach this week, he has allowed his desperation to take over.

Blacks and many other Americans are more concerned about the divisive words the man currently occupying the White House is using today. They won’t be sidetracked by taking up a cause that has no bearing on crucial issues the country is facing right now.

Thank you, Dahleen Glanton!

Thanks, wyldwolf

[True Blue American]

9. I agree!

Division is Trump’s game. No Democrat needs to do the same thing.

[crazytown]

4. +1000%

[Peacetrain]

5. We have been living with the "Love" campaign since Sen Booker announced in Iowa

This is so disingenuous to what he has been preaching at us.. and to think I donated so he would be in the first debate.. goes to show we all make mistakes

[Hachetman]

14. Donated....

If anything....he has shown himself to be perhaps not even really fit to be a senator.

[MadDAsHell]

6. Hey, anything to gain a couple poll points right?

[Lonestarblue]

7. I hope to see Booker and several candidates drop out after the next debate.

Many are just not connecting with voters and need to give it up. In their efforts to stand out, they’re starting to denigrate fellow Democrats. Not good. I really respect Eric Swalwell for recognizing his position and dropping out early. More candidates should follow his lead.

[Rene]

8. Booker Quit You the race You're not the right candidate.

Just like Kamala.....you DON'T attack fellow Democrats.
Sit down ...you're out of the race now.

[bigtree]

21. yeah, tell this black man running for president to 'sit down' in deference to your white candidate

...sounds familiar to this 58 year old black man.

[Gothmog]

10. I am very disappointed in Booker

[MGKrebs]

11. So the evidence that Cory Booker thinks Biden is "the enemy of black people"

is this:
- the former vice president’s use of the term “boy”
- touting his ability to work with two segregationist senators
- his 1994 crime bill that nearly doubled the nation’s prison population ... with most of the incarcerated being African Americans and Hispanics.

This is pretty standard campaign rhetoric. Anyone with a long record is going to have things they need to reconcile. But none of those things rise to the level of Biden being "the enemy of black people". Cory should certainly be allowed to show how he thinks he could do it better, and that would be hard to do without explaining what he can do better than.

It's still way early for a legit candidate to drop out. I would expect any candidate to stay in until at least the first primary as long as they have money to spend.

[DownriverDem]

15. Biden

can beat trump. I wish folks would focus on that.

[qazplm135]

32. And?

So can other candidates.

[crazytown]

19. Lie: 1994 crime bill nearly doubled the nation's prison population

I am not saying you are lying, but that is simply not true. At most the incarcerated population rose by twenty percent, then declined.

[MGKrebs]

24. I was just quoting what the article cited as their "evidence".

This was always going to be the issue with Biden: His long, long, record, and his off-the-cuff style. We better find out now if he can handle this criticism, and if Booker goes down in the process, so be it.

edit: And if that statement is a lie then we should all take that whole article with a grain of salt.

[crazytown]

25. The Justice Bureau numbers -

The rate of incarceration nearly tripled under Reagan & Bush 1.

[ewagner]

12. I was brought up in the south in the Jim Crow era...

It wasn't until I was in high school and later in college that I began to understand how racist I was and how deeply it was imbedded.

When faced with the pervasive nature of racism, I knew that stopping it completely all at once was impossible. Not even another civil war would change things. If it was going to be stopped it would have to be from "inside" the power structure, not from the "outside". Racism would have to be chipped away, bit by bit, from the inside and our admiration was focused on political leaders who found ways and means to eliminate the legal barriers to equality by converting other legislators one-by-one until the votes were there to change the laws.

Biden wasn't perfect....he still isn't...but he didn't start a new civil war...he was more like a termite, eating away from within at the foundations of inequality. There were many like him and they helped eliminate the most of the legal, institutional basis of racism.

Now... we watch the Republican party rebuild the legal structure of inequality...the unlying culture of racism still exists and has been given new voice. ...and the battle goes on.

Just my humble opinion.

[Cha]

16. "But for Booker, it was too little, too late. It does not benefit his campaign if African Americans

look to the future. It only serves him if they continue to look angrily at the past."

From your link.. Thank you.

[DownriverDem]

17. Biden

can beat trump. He has wide support. Folks need to focus on who can win the Electoral College.

[LuvNewcastle]

18. This sort of thing is predictable with identity politics.

A candidate from whatever category tries to insinuate to the voters in that category that they will be under-served by anyone else. They owe him their votes because he shares their identity. That's no way to build a coalition to win, and certainly not to govern.

[jalan48]

23. +1

[bigtree]

20. Of course, Booker NEVER SAID, 'Joe Biden is the enemy of black people'

...such bullshit.

Just express your opinion, don't throw around inflammatory words NEVER uttered by Booker.

[crazytown]

22. No, he said Biden was the 'Architect of Mass Incarceration'

that destroyed black communities and millions of lives. And it is not true.



Incarceration nearly tripled under the Reagan and Bush I Administrations.

[treestar]

28. funny how Biden voted that bill into law all by himself.

and he harassed Anita Hill, too, apparently Thomas is not in the picture. It appears it is Biden who has the best brain. Look at all he can do single handedly. He elected Obama too.

[bigtree]

29. not like he ran the committee that held the Anita Hill hearings.

...or was anything like chairman of the committee that advanced the Crime Bill.

Right...?

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/22/us/politics/joe-bidens-role-in-90s-crime-law-could-haunt-any-presidential-bid.html

[treestar]

31. Running those hearings was worse than sexual harassment

and his amazing ability to convince 93 other Senators to vote for a terrible bill meant solely to harm people of color is simply amazing! Dotard could never do it.

[crazytown]

30. I think a few statesman like comments

about the situation we find ourselves in today, with the lives of African American leaders being put a risk by a racist president, would be more welcome at this point, than VP Biden demonstrating how well he can fight. The nation is looking for resolute, reassuring words of unity. Biden does not have to try hard to sound and look like a President, he won't be marked down (I think) for appealing to our better angels.

[stonecutter357]

27. K&R

[Tarheel_Dem]

33. 100% agree with the author. n/t

[highplainsdem]

34. Harris is also polling far behind Biden among AA voters.