Editor’s note: Cory Booker showed Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, what it means to have some real chutzpah

Fifteen years ago, I covered then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker for New Jersey’s Star-Ledger. Booker was accessible and friendly – a Star Trek geek who invited me to attend a community screening of the franchise’s 2009 reboot he held at a local theater. Booker easily drew attention, as reflected in the 2005 Academy Award-nominated documentary “Street Fight,” which chronicles how he defeated then-Mayor Sharpe James, a 16-year incumbent, while living in decrepit public housing. Some viewed it as a stunt. “Honestly, that was just one of the many ways that he tried to bring attention to some kind of incredulous circumstance,” argues his former mayoral press secretary Lupe Todd-Medina, now a political consultant. “He recognized his ability to draw the media and cameras, and Newark desperately needed the attention at that time to draw resources from state and federal coffers.” 

Booker’s U.S. Senate win, replacing the deceased Frank Lautenberg in 2013, and all the years since, set him up for his historic 25-plus hour speech on the Senate floor. Booker railed against the Trump administration’s government spending cuts and called out fellow Democrat Chuck Schumer for signing off on a funding bill the majority of Democrats opposed to prevent a government shutdown. “Schumer shocked me when he said they’re going to use some kind of budget gimmick to push this through. He shocked me … Chuck. I thought this was going to come down to the parliamentarian, but it doesn’t sound like it now. It’s just going to get done,” he said. Booker had the chutzpah to take a stand, and it worked. He got his party’s – and the nation’s – attention.