See for yourself. C-SPAN's newly opened video archive has a call-in segment with Booker from July 2000, when the self-described "neophyte in politics" was only two years into his first and only term as a ward councilman. The camera pans to a Time article titled, "The Savior of Newark?" while callers, Republicans and Democrats alike, praise his refreshing take on urban governance. The footage might as well have been shot last week -- the perception of Booker hasn't changed one bit in ten years, despite his spending nearly half of that time at the top of the city's political totem pole. And while the media has taken note of the significant progress he's made, the title 'Savior of Newark?' still has that question mark behind it.
It's been the subject of just about every magazine profile and TV spotlight on the guy, to the point where his story is considered 'told' until he grabs for the next rung up the political ladder (or somehow falls off of it). How could someone with 'FUTURE' written all over him have an image that's so suspended in time?
Earlier that C-SPAN year, in February 2000, New York magazine predicted that Booker, "an anti-machine city councilman... will probably be mayor of Newark in a year's time, and may well run for a higher office by the time he is 40." (Could they have meant that higher office with the constitutional requirement of 35 years of age?) Well, Booker turned 41 years old today. Yes, he is still Newark's struggling savior, though he is no longer its anti-machine councilman, the David to its Goliath. In fact, if anyone runs the machine these days, it's probably him.
People outside Newark do not look at Cory Booker this way. Perhaps it takes the proper Jersey eye, because when it comes down to it, all the magazines and news shows overlook a key characteristic in explaining who Cory Booker is: a politician from New Jersey... maybe not the fat-knuckled kind we're used to, but a New Jersey pol nonetheless.
To watch Booker as he campaigns for reelection on May 11 is to observe him in the context that he has made himself seem unnatural in -- Jersey politics. Specifically, urban Jersey politics. This month is not about the national ambitions, the editorial boards or charity circuit cruisers; it's about the people he depends on for votes. Newark is not a wealthy city. It's not even a city that caters to the wealthy. It is poor to lower middle class, mostly black, some Latino, a little Italian and a smattering of others. Booker is their mayor. They are the people who put him in office back in 2006. They are the people who have kept him there so far. They are the people who will decide how much clout he carries into a second term. As about two hundred years of American history have shown, keeping them happy -- maintaining political harmony in the cityscape -- requires nothing less than a political machine.
The iconic machine mayor is Richard J. Daley, the master of the political ward club. After the remote cartoon that now constitutes the image of Boss Tweed, Daley's name is probably the most synonymous with the urban political machine, the most tangible idea of what to expect of the person who runs it. For a small-shouldered, pudgy man, he was incredibly nimble in acquiring and keeping power from the early 1950s all the way to his death in '76. Like Booker, Daley was a teetotaling study in self-discipline, a workaholic who saw no problem too small for his personal attention. As you could guess, the two have their differences, but they are interwoven every time someone in the Booker administration hands out his or her business card. Written on its back is a mission statement that pledges, in part, to "set a national standard for urban transformation." See, whether he aspired to or not, Daley defined urban governance in his age. He set the standard from which these bold Newarkers hope to transform.
Tweed, Daley -- the political machine is an Irish import, inherited by the blacks after white flight from the cities. We're talking about a system that is almost as old as the nation itself. When the American Revolution ended, the Continental army officers and gentry tried to keep the British social hierarchy intact by establishing exclusive clubs, the most notable being the Society of the Cincinnati, named after the humble Roman dictator-democrat that Washington was most often compared to. Cincinnatus was a farmer who also happened to be a great military strategist, and when Rome was under siege, the Senate suspended democratic rule and gave him the absolute power necessary to subdue their enemies. Once the war was won, Cincinnatus did not cling to authority as most men might; he restored the republic and returned to his plow. It was a humility in triumph and dedication to principle not seen again until Annapolis, where Washington resigned his commission to Congress in 1783. When Jefferson asked Houdon to carve the giant American general from marble, the French sculptor sailed across the ocean only to pose Washington as an echo of his Roman forebear. Cincinnatus became the emblem of the selfless leader, the ideal the Founders aspired to.
But when the poor and ethnic minorities looked at the new American aristocracy, they didn't see Cincinnatuses; they saw a burgeoning tyranny of silk, robed in the cloth of democracy. The foot soldiers of the Revolution had to consolidate their power in numbers, form their own clubs. One in Manhattan took the name of a legendary native warrior, and from that group arose Tammany Hall. Founded three weeks after the adoption of the Constitution, it was clannish and orderly, functioning like a village back in Ireland, except it got bigger and wealthier, wealthier and bigger. Similar organizations sprouted in cities throughout the country -- cities like Newark. But Tammany remained the euphemism of machine politics... remains the euphemism to this very day.
The idea of Tammany has reigned for so long because the institution is stronger than any one man. Tammany's mascot is the tiger, and an appropriate one at that. Sometimes the big cat can be lulled to sleep, only to awaken and eat you alive. Every so often, someone comes along who knows how to ride it. And if you can tame a tiger, why in the hell would you kill it? It's a Cincinnatus conundrum. The only way the machine can ever be dismantled is if the person who is at the top -- the boss -- takes it apart, piece by piece, brick by brick and returns it to the people. But a Cincinnatus of the machine has never come.
The cities' politics have waited for their revolutionary figure. One who's not a multimillionaire who can buy his seat at the table. ("Without the party," Daley said, "only the rich would be elected to office.") Guys like Rudy Giuliani don't count. Even a Muppet can take Manhattan. Give us a leader who can save a Detroit, a Cleveland, a Newark. Someone who is not a flash in the pan of personal dynamism and can leave a lasting political infrastructure to govern when he's gone. That field's been barren ever since Daley won his first mayoral primary on Washington's Birthday, 1955.
Could it be Booker, that young councilman, the 'Savior of Newark?' who becomes the leader that redeems the city from the machine politics that have caused it so much corruption, so much strife? Isn't that what the cliche is all about? Whether the mayor who yearns to "set a national standard for urban transformation" is capable of redefining the urban political model, too?
Sadly, as the nation failed to notice that Booker aged these past ten years, it also failed to notice his transition, his slow acquiescence and submission to some of the old ways of politics in America's big cities. Cory Cincinnatus is still at the core of the Newark mayor's governing philosophy, but a Boss Booker has stepped in on the political side more than he would like to admit. As he runs for his first reelection, now is the time to look at Cory Booker, Jersey Politician.
