Cory Booker’s been in the US Senate for scarcely a year, but he seems to be treating it as the witness-protection program.
Plainly, the New Jersey Democrat, who’s had trouble cracking 50 percent in the polls even though he’s running against an unknown, fears debating GOP challenger Jeff Bell. So he announced he would take part in only one debate, to be held little more than a week before the Nov. 4 election.
Alas, this is all too typical of Cory Booker 2.0. Gone is the reformer who took on the corrupt Newark machine (twice). Instead, he’s become just another career pol who prefers sending out 140-character tweets to debating his positions openly.
It’s not as if there’s a shortage of issues.
Since Booker left his job as mayor of Newark a year ago, for example, a New Jersey comptroller’s report has highlighted the mayor’s lack of oversight as chairman of the Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corp.
Newark paid the NWCDC $10 million a year to manage its water distribution. Millions went into the pockets of Booker’s friends, even as crime-ridden Newark was so strapped for cash it was laying off cops.
This is just one of the many issues that would come up in a real, no-holds-barred debate. New Jersey voters would benefit from hearing Bell and Booker clarify their different approaches to everything from ObamaCare and the war against ISIS to the state’s looming pension crisis.
Sadly, here Booker is following a fellow Democrat from across the Hudson — Gov. Cuomo, who’s made a career out of ducking one-on-one debate. Shame on Jersey and its press if they let him get away with it.