For now, President Biden’s State of the Union tour de force performance, turning the harsh rightwing House heckling on itself, has quelled speculation about which Democrats might be contemplating a 2024 run.  No doubt, Biden, 80, proved he was very much in possession of all of his faculties by using verbal jujitsu to get Republicans to stand up and applaud taking entitlements like Social Security and Medicare off the beltway’s butcher block.

Here in New Jersey, back in November,  Politico reported the speculation that Gov. Phil Murphy, 65, was mulling a run for president had gotten enough credibility that Farleigh Dickinson University’s Public Mind Poll fielded a survey that indicated half of the Democrats they surveyed did not want him to run, as compared to 30 percent who did.

Meanwhile, a month earlier, Sen. Cory Booker, 53,  had actually travelled to New Hampshire, where the 2020 presidential contender was enthusiastically greeted as he campaigned for Rep. Annie Kuster, Rep. Chris Pappas, and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan. Booker described President Joe Biden as “a man of towering decency” who he credited with successfully battling the COVID-19 pandemic while offering struggling American families a lifeline with the expanded child tax credit which ultimately was not renewed.

Back in 2020, due to a lack of campaign cash, Booker suspended his campaign weeks before the Iowa Caucus and the Granite State’s primary in February when he got just 155 votes. Booker’s ill-fated bid for the Democratic nomination did win the support of much of the New Jersey political establishment with Gov. Murphy traveling to Iowa as did Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12^th on Booker’s behalf.

When he returned to New Hampshire last October, he not only stumped for the incumbent Democrats, but for keeping their state’s status as the first in the nation primary. “I’m going to tell you right now as a guy who has a lot of love for the Granite State, who came up here and saw how special this tradition is — I get it now after coming here,” Booker said, according to WMUR. “It is a small state where people really get involved and really get to know their candidates. I want this state to remain at the top of our primary list.”

Booker from his spot on the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, dove enthusiastically into the ins and outs of farm policy and in the process became a passionate advocate for the family farm with an eye toward helping that constituency build a broader coalition for reform.

“For years I have worked to elevate the voices of farmers, workers, and consumers in urban and rural communities, sounding the alarm about our broken food system and calling for change,” Senator Booker wrote on the occasion of re-introducing his legislative agenda.  “The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and recent climate change-related disasters have highlighted how fragile our current food system is. So, I’m excited to re-introduce a package of bills that would help mold our food system into one that is more competitive, resilient, humane, and just for everyone. I’m eager to work with my colleagues on the Senate Agriculture Committee to make meaningful progress on these issues, because the status quo created by agribusiness special interests is putting all of us at risk.”

Generally, Booker’s operational style very much resembles that of President Biden’s pragmatic bipartisanship approach that forgoes scoring rhetorical points for concrete legislative achievements. That worldview likely tracks better in a general election than it does in the kind of bruising primary contests that Booker ducked out before any votes were cast in 2020.

Throughout Booker’s Senate career, he’s consistently reached out to his Republican colleagues to support legislation to do things like reform sentencing guidelines for nonviolent drug offenders and to help inmates successfully reenter society. Last year, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in police custody, he pressed hard to win passage of the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act but came up short after an extended effort with his Republican colleague Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to win over several of Scott’s Republican colleagues.

“Those talks collapsed, however, even after Democrats privately scaled back the proposal to avoid controversial changes to qualified immunity, which shields police officers from lawsuits,” the Washington Post reported.

Last May, Booker was one of the lead sponsors of the Respect, Advancement, and Increasing Support for Educators (RAISE) Act, would give educators with a minimum of $1000 in refundable tax credits and as much as $15,000. “Currently, public elementary and secondary teachers earn about 20 percent less than similarly educated professions,” Booker’s press release reasoned. “Based on a worldwide comparison, the average salary gap between teachers and others with comparable educational backgrounds is greater in the U.S. than in any other OECD country with available data.

“Educators are constantly asked to do more and more without any significant increase in their compensation, and often at their own expense,” Senator Booker said in a statement when the bill was introduced. “The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these hardships, leading many teachers to leave the profession. This legislation would help support educators by using the federal tax code to put more resources back in teachers’ pockets. It’s time to reward our society’s unsung heroes by increasing teachers’ take-home pay.”

In June, Booker became the second U.S. Senator to accept the United Farm Workers invitation to work alongside farm workers in the field as part of the union’s “take Our Jobs” campaign for immigration reform. At a Garden State farm, Booker picked lettuce, cleaned leafy greens, and rounded out his day planting tomatoes.

“I left today with a renewed appreciation of the incredible job that farm workers do each day in the face of immense challenges and struggle,” said Senator Booker after his day on the farm. “From being the foundation of our nation’s food system to standing on the frontlines of our nation’s continued response to the COVID-19 pandemic, farm workers perform work that is vital for our nation. For far too long, however, many of them have been denied basic legal protections, benefits, and a pathway to citizenship. I am grateful for those who shared their stories with me today. It’s long overdue for Congress to act to protect farm workers and our food system.”

By this January, Booker, along with Sen. Robert Menendez, were willing to lead dozens of their Democratic Congressional colleagues very publicly blasting President Biden’s decision to impose new asylum restrictions in the face of rising criticism from Republicans that the administration had lost control of the southern border. New Jersey’s two Senators were joined by Rep. Donald Payne Jr., Rep. Frank Pallone, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, and Rep. Rob Menendez.

“It is unconscionable that asylum seekers have no option but to sleep in the streets of El Paso, in overcrowded shelters in Juarez, or in tents in Reynosa, but new asylum restrictions against migrants will not solve this problem,” the Democrats wrote. “We believe that your administration can and must continue to expand legal pathways for migrants and refugees into the United States — without further dismantling the right to seek asylum at our border. This right is a pillar of the post-war international order to which the United States has committed itself.”

With Tyre Nichol’s beating last month death in police custody in Memphis the national calls for police reform were renewed. President Biden invited the parents of the 29-year-olds mother RowVaugn Wells and his stepfather Rodney Wells to attend his State of the Union address.

“Let’s commit ourselves to make the words of Tyler’s mom true: Something good must come from this. Something good,” Biden told Congress. “And all of us, all of us — folks, it’s difficult but it’s simple. All of us in this chamber, we need to rise to this moment. We can’t turn away. Let’s do what we know in our hearts that we need to do. Let’s come together to finish the job on police reform.”

Booker told WBUR’s Here & Now after the State of the Union, that despite the loss of the House to the Republicans, he saw some reason to be hopeful in how Nichole’s parents were received by the sharply divided Congress after Biden recognized them.

“In a night where you had one side of the chamber standup and the other [stay] seated we all stood up that night and recognized Tyre Nichols’s mother and her pain and I saw with in that some hope that maybe we can get something done,” Booker said. “Maybe not  something as comprehensive [as the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act] but something.”

This week, President Biden undertook his post-SOTU campaign like tour to Wisconsin and Florida re-invigorated while the special counsel probe of his mislaid Top-Secret files and the unresolved federal criminal investigation of his entrepreneur son Hunter continued to percolate. And even as he prepared to give his State of the State, New York Times columnist Michele Goldberg was writing that Biden should opt not to run for re-election.

Goldberg quoted an anti-Trump Republican strategist who said of Biden that “Democrats say he’s done a good job but he’s too old. He’ll be closer to 90 than 80 by the end of his second term.”

But even post State of the Union address, the issue of President Biden’s age continued to surface even on MSNBC, the bluest of blue settings that’s friendliest to all things Democratic Party.

“The age issue is not going to go away,” James Carville, Democratic strategist told MSNBC’s Ari Melber. “They are not going to stop asking about it. You can’t say you need to segue way from this and focus on the real issues…You are not going to pivot to another issue….It looms on the minds of Democrats. I think it’s something you cannot wish away. It’s going to be there. It is going to be a factor. They are going to have to deal with it. You can tack to the middle. You can tack to the left. You can tack to the right. But you can’t tack younger.”