Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

So, just to remind you, we left Cory in Newark, where he was watching his friend Frank die. "The star may be dead and gone, but the energy, light, and warmth it gave off while living are eternal. Stars die, but their light goes on forever."

Copy editing 🧯🔥EMERGENCY🔥 on page 112! 👆 Is there a copy editor on this flight? Anyone?

#Ballantine Books, how could you have allowed *all thirty* of those words to make it into print, and would you please FIX IT before I stroke out?

Contest: Compress Cory's sentence to six words or fewer. Winner receives his book when I'm done with it.

Anyway, Frank is dead and we're going to Washington, the title of Chapter 7.

I like it that Cory's chapters are short, unlike Kamala's, so you can kind of snack on them like an hors d'oeuvre. This one's only ten pages.

Page 1: Cory's dad gets Parkinson;s. You won't be surprised to learn that he bore his diagnosis with his usual mix of humor, determination, and courage.

He always campaigned with Cory, "and even delivered condoms to senior citizens after hearing about the growing problem of STDs in some of our city's senior buildings."

But when NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg died, leaving behind his seat, his father was too ill to come with him on the campaign trail.

(Parenthetically, I have never read or heard anything to contradict the view that Parkinson's is the cruellest of all fates. If any of you out there have been diagnosed with it, or love someone suffering from it, my heart goes out to you.)

During the primary, his father has a stroke. "My father, a superhero to me all my life, was now terrifyingly mortal." He wanted to go home to see him, but his mom insisted he keep campaigning: It was what his father would have wanted.

I don't know how people like this, in the public eye, are capable of doing this. They have a discipline--and capacity to compartmentalize--so far beyond mine that they're almost like another species.

Harry Reid shines here: He and his staff went to Cory's dad's bedside, in Vegas, to comfort his mom. That was really, genuinely kind of them.

Cory wins the primary.

Six days before the election, Cory gets the good news: Whole Foods is coming to Newark. "This was about more than a supermarket," he writes. This was a sign the Newark was on its way to being the kind of city that has a Whole Foods.

But on the way to the press conference, he gets a text: "Call mom."

"Six days before I would have been elected to the United States Senate, my father was gone."

That's sad.

Personally, I've found a simple solution to spare myself the sadness of being unable to share my achievements with my late mom. I just don't achieve anything. No gain, no pain.

On the day he was sworn in, Congressman Lewis helped to fill the absence. He was the fourth black senator to be sworn in. Then, before he takes his oath, his mother (can you guess ... ?)

That's right, it's inspiring rhetoric time.

"Don't get carried away with all of this.
Always remember why you came down here and who sent you.
Remember, of he to whom much is given, much is required.
Remember, the title doesn't make the man, the man must make the title.

"Remember, neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And remember, borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
Remember this above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

(Just kidding. But apparently she really did say the first part, and finished by telling him, "Remember, no matter what, I love you, *Remember.*")

Cory has no problem writing about his personal life.

Wears his heart right on his sleeve, this one does.

October, 2013: Biden swears him in. He goes to the Senate. He can't figure out how the voting buttons work.

Menendez takes mercy on him. "Cory, just raise your hand and say 'Aye.'"

On the campaign trail, he'd been shaken up by the homicide of 14-year-old Ali Rajohn Eric Henderson, whose apartment was full of bricks of heroin, a loaded handgun, and bullets.

I have a feeling he is going to be a symbol of something. What will it be? Cory, I predict, "won't be able to stop thinking about 14-year-old Ali Rajohn Eric Henderson," which will give him the motivation to win a glorious battle against all odds. Shall we see if I'm right?

That didn't take long: Criminal justice reform. The failed war on drugs. Racial disparities in incarceration. Those are his Moby Dick.

(Call me Ishmael.)

The chapter ends with no progress in killing the whale-- careful readers will note this is a theme---but a lot of hope. Mostly in the form of Rand Paul. "Rand spoke openly and regularly about the broken system, the failed policies of the war on drugs,

and even the racial disparities in incarceration. He discussed many of the same solutions I did. To put it simply, he and a small group of my future Republican colleagues gave me hope--hope that the tide was turning ... (END)