Russell Berman: ‘A touch of annoyance flashes across Cory Booker’s face as we talk about fighting. ‘Why do people preemptively, continually, mistake kindness for weakness?’ he asks. By ‘people,’ he means, at this moment, me. I had just brought up the festering concern, expressed by fans and critics alike, that he is simply too nice to win the presidency.”“Booker has been trying to convince me that he’s tough enough for this uncivil American era—that a pathologically genial New Jersey Democrat who preached love in his (mostly unloved) 2020 campaign could, if called to, knock a guy on his ass…”