Two Potential Democratic VP Nominees Come Out Swinging

Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey delivered hard-hitting speeches at the National Press Club last week that showed why each is regarded as a top option as Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Perez, born in Buffalo, NY and shown in our photo at right, described how his family’s immigrant roots in the Dominican Republic helps inspire his implementation of the Obama administration’s policies, including a presidential order enabling estimated 4.2 million workers to qualify for overtime.

Booker, shown below in a file photo, spoke on “The Search for Equal Justice.” He was reared in a prosperous New Jersey suburb that his parents desegregated, and after a stint as mayor of the 95 percent minority nearby city of Newark won election to the U.S. senate in 2013.

Each spoke on June 22 at the press club, which is located in downtown Washington, DC. This editor attended both talks as part of our ongoing understanding of the 2016 election campaign and other national issues. We focus both on mainstream and little-reported issues in the contest between prospective Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

The Labor Secretary’s talk was entitled, Building the Best America, with quotations below from the prepared text, which closely paralleled his talk as delivered.

“A few weeks ago,” Perez began, “the New York Times asked, “When did optimism become uncool?” I must confess that – as a chronic, relentless optimist – I took it a little personally. I know my teenage kids think I’m uncool. I get that.

“But the Times hit on something darker within our politics – the fact that some politicians find it expedient to exploit people’s worst fears… to accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive… to turn people against each other instead of toward each other.”