Nine months ago, during the Democratic National Convention, Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker gave a rousing speech to a bipartisan group of heavy hitters at the Denver Country Club. That speech was sponsored by the Alliance for Choice in Education, a private scholarship program started by Denver oilman Alex Cranberg and supported by a deep and wide pool of donors.
This morning, ACE brought Booker back to speak to a larger crowd — several hundred people — in a cavernous hangar at Centennial Airport. And in 20 minutes, speaking without notes, in flawless, perfectly crafted sentences, Booker again made a case for civic engagement, passionate commitment, and an overhaul of public education and other stagnant bureaucratic structures.
Booker’s people forbade video or audio taping, so I will not offer any lengthy quotes here. In any case, his message, while long on passion and eloquence, was not burdened by specific proposals.
While this generation has not been called to the “blood-soaked beaches of Normandy,” or to register voters in the segregated South, Booker said, “our generation’s epitaph, a century from now,” may bet that we helped every child find a pathway to success.
“We can make this happen not in 25 or 15 years, but sooner than we think, if we show the courage our ancestors did,” Booker said.
He called the educational status quo “unacceptable…an affront to the dignity of people…”
Booker is a Democrat. This morning’s crowd was primarily well-heeled Republicans, many of whom aren’t strangers to private jet hangars. My guess is that Booker has national political ambitions. His talk of expanding school choice for low-income children has a post-partisan appeal and is music to the ears of people who support ACE.
Whether his positions on other social issues would overlap with those of his Denver friends is another question; one no one needs to answer yet.
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