Booker warns against political tribalism

New Jersey Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Cory Booker says he hopes the election raises the moral conscience of the country — and he’s cautioning his fellow Democrats not to succumb to political tribalism.

“The 60 million people that voted for Donald Trump are not our enemy. They are our countrymen and women,” Booker said on Wednesday in Shenandoah. “And understand this…The call of the Democratic Party — the ultimate moral call — is not to beat Republicans, simply. It’s to unite Americans in common cause and common purpose.”

Booker urged a crowd in Shenandoah on New Year’s Day not to get hung up on the policy differences among the Democratic candidates.

“Let me tell you a little secret. Whoever becomes your president, is probably going to steal the 90 or 100 policy ideas, platforms that each of us have,” Booker said. “…They better be taking the best ideas from the whole lot to bring them to bear in our policies.”

Booker, the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, said mayors understand how to enact real change with little money.

“All the candidates here are really good people, but the next president is going to face impossible problems, and they can’t play by the rules that we are playing by now. They have to think of creative ways to get us out of these situations,” Booker said. “If I’m your president, I am not going to give in and give up on anything.”

Booker campaigned in Creston early Wednesday afternoon and spoke to more than 100 people Wednesday night in Perry. California billionaire Tom Steyer kicked off a bur tour of Iowa with an event in Council Bluffs on New Year’s Day. He’s scheduled to be in Mason City on Saturday with an event at the MacNider Art Museum starting at 11:00 AM