Cory Booker has become one of the most famous mayors in the nation with the help of a careful political campaign that cast him as a unique talent willing to forgo better opportunities to save this crime-ridden and poverty-plagued city.
His story has been enhanced by tales of derring-do: chasing down criminals on foot, extracting a neighbor from a burning building and rescuing shivering dogs stranded in the snow. The "cult of Cory" has produced a windfall of investment in a city that has been dubbed the carjacking capital of the United States, and a bonanza of publicity for the 43-year-old mayor.
All of that has helped make the Democrat one of the most prominent members of a new generation of black politicians who are positioned to follow President Barack Obama's legacy. They are young, modern, worldly and celebrated by the same multiracial, progressive coalition that elected and re-elected Obama.