Thread by @ShaneGoldmacher

NEWS: Cory Booker is officially running for 2020, hoping his upbeat political persona can lift him in a historically crowded field that for the first time ever will feature two top-tier black candidates.

Story w/ @NYTnickc, with a thread of highlights nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

"Together, we will channel our common pain back into our common purpose," he says in opening video. "Together, America, we will rise." nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Booker will be doing THREE radio interviews in the coming hour, and the shows are revealing:

— Tom Joyner Morning Show.
— Univision’s Despierta America.
— The Black Eagle with Joe Madison

All w/ black/Latino hosts. Then he'll be on The View today, too. nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Like Kamala Harris, Booker is skipping the exploratory step altogether. He's in. The committee is called "Cory 2020."

And the feel of his launch video suggests he wants to be on a first-name kinda basis with the electorate. nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Cory Booker's first trip:

Iowa: Feb 8-9
South Carolina: Feb 10-11
New Hampshire: President's Day weekend

In Iowa, Booker is slated to visit Mason City, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, per his website nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Booker is launching on the first day of Black History Month — the same month that Barack Obama launched his campaign 12 years ago — in his bid to become the second black American president nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

First interview right now: He's on the Joyner show.

"I wanted to come on this show, Tom, because of what you mean to many people in this country." nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Early q to Booker on Joyner show: "With black woman already in the race..." nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

"We're not going to win this race by showing the worst of who we are but the best," Booker says.

This is the message he has honed in recent years: Of "radical love" and "a revival of civic grace."

Will it work in the era of Trump?
nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

"All I've been listening to is gospel," Booker says of his playlist ahead of his announcement nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Some Booker key staff:

Campaign manager: Addisu Demissie (via Hillary and Gavin Newsom)
Deputy manager: Jenna Lowenstein (via Hillary and Chris Murphy)
Senior adviser: Matt Klapper (his CoS)
Senior strategist: Mo Butler (ex-CoS)
Nat'l pol director: Tamia Booker (deputy CoS)

"Today is the anniversary of the sit-in movement" in Greensboro, Booker says on the Joe Madison show.

Calls himself the "direct product" of the civil rights movement. nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

Interesting exchange:

Madision: Give me the top 3 policy issues that are most important to you

Booker: Says as mayor he learned not one switch to "flip" and speaks broadly of "common sense of purpose." Winds around to:

"Economic justice"
"Environmental justice"
Health care

But Booker's answer reveals much of how he wants to frame his candidacy: More about big and broad unifying themes while saying as a mayor in Newark he had to actually solve things

"We've got to get away from reflexive partisanship," Booker tells Madison on the day he enters the Democratic primary nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/…

"It's a free country man. Do what you want," Booker says of Howard Schultz's entrance into the race.

More: "I'm not running to a Republican. I'm not running to beat an independent. I'm running to unite Americans."