N.J. Democrats can’t have it both ways on Booker, wacky “Green New Deal”

By Matt Rooney
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Cory Booker is 100% down for the Green New Deal, Save Jerseyans. Ending air travel, slaughtering cows, Flintstones’s cars, gutting every structure in the United States… all of it. The latest cost estimate for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s quixotic endeavor is $93 trillion. That’s $600,000 per U.S. household.

New Jersey’s new “moderate” House Democrats are 100% “in” for Cory Booker’s presidential campaign. Things may get awkward rather quickly in the months ahead.

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Every New Jersey House Democrat — all eleven of them — have endorsed Cory Booker’s presidential campaign. This group includes the five Democrats in districts targeted by the NRCC for 2020. Each of these districts (2, 3, 5, 7, and 11) were carried by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Hugin last November. Trump won each of them in 2016 except for 7.

Consider the case of Jeff Van Drew who screamed ‘no’ during Pelosi’s leadership election and jumped out of his seat to get a Trump photo-op at the State of the Union.

“…the resolution veers wildly off topic and makes grand pronouncements that are not in line with who we are as Americans. The United States of America is the greatest and most powerful nation in the history of the world because we are a compassionate, capitalist country,” Van Drew said in a press release on February 15th.

Around the same time? He also said this:

“I am proud to endorse Senator Booker’s bid for the presidency. While he and I don’t agree on every issue, he has shown time and again that he’s relentlessly focused on building bridges and working together to get things done for the people of New Jersey, and for every American. His record of bipartisan accomplishment and message of bringing Americans together regardless of their backgrounds or political views is something this country desperately needs.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s also unclear who the hell Van Drew is talking about. Booker continues to move further (and further) beyond the outer boundaries of rational political discourse with every passing day. His 2020 primary strategy isn’t “bipartisan” or calculated to “build bridges.”

He’s appealing to the most radical elements of his party’s increasingly radical base.

Especially if Booker stays active in the primary well into the 2020 cycle? New Jersey Democrats running in Trump districts may find themselves increasingly in conflict with the man at the top of their column (remember: the legislature recently acted to permit Booker to run for president and reelection to his U.S. Senate seat simultaneously this fall).

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Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8405 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.