Telegraph photo by ADAM URQUHART Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker of New Jersey speaks passionately to those gathered in a crowded room at Zco Corp. in Nashua on Friday about why he is running.

NASHUA – U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., continued making his case to be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee on Friday during his tour of the immigrant-led Zco Corp. business in Nashua on Friday.

U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., and New Hampshire Rep. Latha Mangipudi , D-Nashua, joined Booker for the tour.

“We are going to win as a nation, not a party, we’re going to win as a nation when we affirm that the ties that bind us are stronger than the lines that divide us – when we work as generations past have to put more indivisible back into this one nation under God,” Booker said.

Booker said this election should not only be about what certain candidates oppose, but also what they support. Booker said he wants to lead a Democratic Party whose members can inspire voters to go to the polls.

Booker said this is a “moral moment” in America. He said he is tired of seeing fellow citizens getting slaughtered guns that he believes should be outlawed.

“The strongest nation on the planet Earth sends our children to school with the implicit message that we can’t protect you, so we’re going to send you to school to teach you how to hide,” Booker said. “We now are a nation, that in our public schools, we have more shelter in place drills than we do have fire drills.”

Booker said the candidate the nation needs is one who can help get to a point where the country has a revival of civic grace – when members of the nation begin to have the courageous empathy for the needs of others.

On the topic of gun violence, Booker aims to pursue a number of initiatives if elected president. Some of these include taking on the National Rifle Association and the corporate gun lobby; banning assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks; limiting gun buyers to one handgun per month; and increasing funding for community-based violence intervention programs and gun violence research. Booker also aims to pass universal background checks and keep guns out of the wrong hands with gun licensing.

“We are best when we stand together and work together,” Booker said. “That’s not just how we get out of the gully: That’s how together, to the mountain top, we will rise.”

Adam Urquhart may be contacted at 594-1206, or at aurquhart@nashuatelegraph.com.

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