Quoth the mayor of Newark:

I want people to ask me about nonproliferation. I want them to run to me to speak about the situation in the Middle East.

It seems to me that Cory Booker should be in a different line of work if he wants people to ask him about nonproliferation, much less run to him to talk about Middle Eastern politics.  This came from an interesting part of Matt Bai’s article on whether Obama represented “the end of black politics,” which included Booker’s remarks that he didn’t want to be pigeonholed simply as a black leader and identified with the standard issues of “profiling by police, incarceration rates, [and] flagging urban economies.”  While I suppose this desire is understandable if a politician aspires to statewide or national office, I still find it rather odd.  Presumably, whatever one thinks about typical Democratic views on these issues, the Democrats who espouse them think that they are representing their constituents’ interests by taking these positions.  Whether they are, in fact, representing their constituents’ best interests is the subject of debate, but it does seem a little curious that a politician wouldn’t want to be identified with issues on which he thinks he has the right ideas.  It seems to me that there are many Republicans who have this same defensive attitude when it comes to social issues (John McCain leaps to mind), as if they are glad to receive votes and take money from donors on the basis of these things but are clearly embarrassed to be associated with the people and the issues in question.  It is fitting, I suppose, that this dynamic seems to apply most to the issues important to those two constituencies that provide the most loyal support for their respective parties–blacks and socially conservative Christians–and are most taken for granted by the parties. 

On the right, there is the same desire to break out of stereotypes, whether it is Sam Brownback talking about Darfur and prison reform or Rick Santorum pushing debt relief for developing countries, but at least on the Republican side this has the unfortunate effect of strengthening the worst activist and interventionist tendencies already present in the party.  The effort to carve out a different political identity that goes beyond a relatively “narrow” social issue focus unfortunately seems to result in something of a grab-bag agenda that adopts faddish proposals in no small part for their ability to shock and surprise journalists and political opponents.  It’s worth pondering which bad Democratic habits will be reinforced as black politicians become more prominent as state and national leaders.