The buzz around Cory Booker has been getting pretty loud. He was a surrogate speaker for Obama during the campaign, traveling around the country and across TV networks on his behalf. He was a Rhodes scholar, attended Standford, Oxford, and Yale Law. He became a councilman in Newark and earned a reputation for living his politics. For almost 10 years, he resided in a Newark housing project, working with tenants to fight for better conditions. He then moved to a drug and gang-plagued housing community in South Newark, fighting a drug war while living at the epicenter. His grassroots efforts included both a 10-day hunger strike to protest open drug dealing in the projects, and living out of a mobile home, parking on street corners known to be places where drug trafficking occurred. His actions earned him the moniker “The Savior of Newark” from Time Magazine and resulted in increased police forces in several neighborhoods.
He clearly has high ambitions and his name has been tossed around as a future Governor, Senator, or even successor to Obama. So, when the Ithaca Youth Bureau held a 60 year anniversary party and pulled Booker as the keynote speaker, Rachel and I decided to hear what he had to say.
His Ithaca speech was a little underwhelming. It came across a bit too rehearsed and preachy for our taste. But, he appears to be a politician with a bright future. If you’re curious about the speech, it was very similar to this graduation speech I found online:
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