Mayor of Newark Corey Booker, Stanford alumna, class of 1990 and 1991, has a lengthy recent interview on The Daily Beast. Booker, like President Obama, is a unique mish-mash of doctrines, attitudes, and beliefs that defies many of the old labels. For instance, a cornerstone of Booker’s agenda is law and order. Under his watch, Newark is on track for the lowest murder rate since 1957. Corey Booker, certified action hero:
The day I was elected, there were murders happening in the City of Newark, and the urgency was screaming to me from every corner. So we had to get the job done, and literally I jumped into a car with lights and sirens and began on Day One. In fact, on the day I took office, I was coming outside and there was a bank robber running, and I and my security detail chased them down and apprehended them
Booker’s ability to reconcile contradictions – a tough-on-crime progressive, a Black leader that never employs the rhetoric of racial grievance, a “progressive” that understands business – is a problem for conservatism.
What happens when the old divisions that once defined conservatives relative to liberals begin to disappear? Conservatives don’t yet have an answer.