Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is playing the race card to maximum effect in the race to gain the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Booker continued his attacks on former Vice President Joe Biden for his allegedly insensitive remarks on race relations, which now include praising two white segregationists as examples in political civility and arguing that kids wearing hoodies should not be profiled.
“This is a bad culture when you can’t admit mistakes, when you can’t speak to your vulnerabilities and your imperfections,” Booker said on the program, according to HuffPost. “We all have them, but when it comes to difficult issues with race, if you can’t talk openly and honestly about your own development on these issues, I think it’s very hard to lead our country forward so that we can actually deal with our past and rise to a better common cause and common future.”
“We have one destiny in this nation, and right now the vice president, to me, is not doing a good job at bringing folks together,” Booker added. “In fact … he’s causing a lot of frustration and even pain with his words.”
Booker’s statements on “Meet the Press” followed his criticisms of Joe Biden on Friday, when the Democratic Party frontrunner said that the country should “recognize that the kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger.”
“We’ve got to recognize that kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger. Ladies and gentlemen, there are too many black men, and I might add women, in prison,” Biden said in Chicago.
Never missing an opportunity to play identity politics, Booker twisted Biden’s words to somehow clarify them as insensitive towards race relations.
“This isn’t about a hoodie. It’s about a culture that sees a problem with a kid wearing a hoodie in the first place. Our nominee needs to have the language to talk about race in a far more constructive way,” Booker tweeted in response.
At the Democratic presidential debate last Thursday night, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) severely took a chunk out of Biden’s commanding lead when she blasted him on live television for praising two white segregationists during the 1970s.
“It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing,” Kamala Harris said on the debate stage Thursday night. “And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”
The attacks against Biden have quickly taken their toll. According to a Morning Consult/FiveThirtyEight poll, Biden’s support has dropped ten points since last Thursday — 41.5% to 31.5% — while Kamala Harris has jumped a full nine points — 7.9% to 16.6%.