Weigel

Try Harder, Cory Booker Opponents!

New York-based Politico reporter Maggie Haberman furthers the great Booker-Lautenberg intrigue with a story headlined “Frank Lautenberg aide rips Cory Booker.” It’s on, now! Except it isn’t really on, because an aide for a sitting U.S. Senator is too chicken to come out from beyond the cone of anonymity. And what he says, anonymously, is stuff that political operatives might as well have tweeted.

This guy is self-absorbed and disrespectful. It’s shameful that he avoided challenging a Republican just so that he can take on a long-serving, loyal Democrat.

An anonymous source in my head would dispute this: Booker passed on challenging Chris Christie because Christie is a popular, talented campaigner with whom he has maintained a clever detente.

Scurrying around to suggest, anonymously, that some anonymous Democrats are bitter about Booker’s audacity? No, that doesn’t seem like the best outside-the-box strategy of blocking him. (I have no dog in this, but expect better from machine politicians.)