Booker sounds like a 2028 candidate in N.H.

• "I want my party to get back to being for working people," Booker said at a town hall that drew about 200 people, echoing sentiments of top Democrats who are betting on a Tea Party-style revolt on the left.

Democrats "need to start calling out our own party and telling the truth — that our party is not getting it right."

• On crime, for example, "I think we got screwed up … some voices in our party at exactly the wrong time used slogans that the Republican Party weaponized," he said, referring to the progressive "defund the police" movement.
• Booker suggested that Democrats can't go much longer simply defending Obamacare, and should push for expanding publicly funded health care. "As much as I support the Affordable Care Act, it was a lot of Band-Aids on a broken system that didn't fix the system as a whole."
• Later, at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's Eleanor Roosevelt dinner, he toned down his criticism but urged the crowd of 400-plus elected officials and activists to "begin to be a party that excites people with a moral imagination again" and to not "define yourself by what you're against — let America know what you stand for."

Zoom in: Booker is famously optimistic, so his criticisms of his own party underscore the extent to which elected Democrats are heeding the call from their base to fight.

• Even so, Booker is trying to walk a political tightrope of sorts — demanding a "new generation of leaders" but declining to go as far as progressive activists who are calling on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down.
• Asked at the town hall whether Senate Democrats should change their top brass — and what he thinks of his colleagues who voted for this month's deal to reopen the government — he cautioned Democrats against "arguing amongst themselves" because of the high stakes.

Zoom in: At the town hall, Booker posed for selfies and doled out hugs — so many hugs — to people in the crowd.

• "Can I give you a hug? Your energy's so beautiful," he told one older woman in the audience. He then recorded a video on the fly for her son, bringing her to tears.

Behind the scenes: Booker held a private lunch with New Hampshire state Senate Minority Leader Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, state Sen. David Watters and other legislators, another sign he's setting himself up for a White House run.

• The lawmakers talked with Booker about his upcoming wedding, "the fact that the Democratic Party just needs more authenticity," and, in an exchange with a history buff at the table, "Thomas Paine and when Washington had battles in New Jersey," said Perkins Kwoka.
• Booker also met with former state Sen. Jon Morgan, who, along with Watters, was an early supporter of Booker's 2020 presidential campaign.
• Booker traveled to New Hampshire with his longtime political aide Mike Frosolone, communications director David Bergstein, security staffer Kevin Batts, and a digital aide. He was accompanied by longtime New Hampshire strategist Jim Demers as well.

What we're watching: Another shutdown fight could be looming in January. We asked Booker — who voted against the recent deal to open the government — whether Democrats should hold their votes for the next funding bill if Affordable Care Act subsidies aren't extended.

• "I will not give my vote away unless the urgency and crisis of American health care is not addressed in some way," he said.

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