On the first Saturday of his official campaign Charles Booker rolled out the ‘Kentucky New Deal’ promising a wide range of solutions to an ailing state, as long as he gets elected.
Promising to run the largest “deep organizing campaign in the history” of the state, Charles Booker offered his framework for his campaign wrapped around an idea of larger government offered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression.
“Regardless of where you come from, I know you know this, we’ve been getting screwed,” Booker told his audience. “We’ve been getting robbed. We have been receiving a bad deal.”
Booker’s theory, high prescription prices for medicine, like insulin, student debt, jobs leaving, the death of Breonna Taylor, and homelessness were not part of “the deal” offered by FDR’s “New Deal” programs to rescue Americans during the Great Depression. FDR’s New Deal largely ended by 1939 and set the stage for federal government intervention in national economic and social affairs.
On Saturday, Booker said he is running because of politicians who have chosen to choose to line their pockets rather than protect Kentuckians. If Americans in the 1930’s dealt with the Great Depression, Booker contends Americans now in the 2020’s are dealing with the “Great Exploitation.’
“We’re going to lead with our own deal. We’re not waiting on Washington to come tells us what we want. To tell us what we deserve. We’re going to lead ourselves with a Kentucky New Deal,” he said.
The New Kentucky Deal was short on specifics, outside of generalizations that as a group we can end poverty, pay for public schools, pay teachers and protect their pensions, ensure quality healthcare with Medicaid for All, and a guaranteed annual income.
With a nod to Donald Trump’s MAGA hats, Booker launched his own “Kentucky New Deal” hat in response – signaling at least in rhetoric that Trump was on to something and that America and Kentucky is in need of fixing.
Booker also went after Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, calling him ridiculous, saying he could not wait to debate.
Several news outlets rand stories this week about the uphill battle Booker will face in the U.S. Senate race in 2022 against Paul, to which Booker responded on Saturday.
“In the news and the national narrative we get talked about we get disrespected, we get demeaned, we’re doubted, we’re cast aside, but we know the truth – we’re fighters, we’re believers, we stand together as family – we come back,” Booker said.
