The Eagles had this past weekend off, and most players used the time to relax and recharge after a disappointing 2-2 start to the season. But defensive tackle Thomas Booker spent it launching a Democratic canvass in West Philly.
“It’s been great so far,” the Eagles player told Billy Penn when asked how the kickoff went on Saturday. “Honestly, just talking to people about why they’re passionate about the campaign and the issues that they’re passionate about has been really cool for me.”
Booker, 24, who is playing his first year with the Eagles after being signed to the team’s practice squad last season, hasn’t shied away from using his platform for politics: he previously spoke at the White House about gun violence prevention.
Now he’s one of 10 national co-chairs of the newly-minted “Athletes for Harris” campaign in support of presidential candidate Kamala Harris. He shares that new title with Philly native and Hall of Fame basketball player and coach Dawn Staley, as well as sports icons like Magic Johnson and Billie Jean King.
“It’s been a little bit busy so far, since we’re in season,” Booker said.
“Athletes for Harris” is hoping to tap into key voting blocks — particularly young men — in the final sprint before Nov. 5. The campaign says they’re set to produce a blitz of publicity and ads in step with upcoming games, and hope to sway other athletes into giving Harris a public endorsement.
“I think young people in general, some of us can be a little disillusioned as to the importance of voting and getting involved in the political process,” Booker said. “But at critical junctures like this, elections that can really swing the history of the country, you have to be involved in a way that involves you going to the ballot.”
Door-knockers last weekend focused primarily on the Cobbs Creek neighborhood in West Philly after hearing brief remarks from Booker and other guests.
Booker said he wasn’t worried about the potential blowback of endorsing Harris while playing for a team beloved by both Democrats and Republicans across the region.
“Anything that I’m comfortable with standing on publicly, I have no problem with the public reaction or whatever else to it,” said Booker, who is from Ellicott City, Md., and played his college ball at Stanford University. “I think that everyone can respect each other and have a civil discourse about what they don’t like, where they stand, and where they don’t.”
Sports and politics are not strangers, for sure, but this fall and the November election have brought the two closer recently.
In early September, posters with an illustration of Harris in an Eagles helmet were pasted over digital billboards in SEPTA bus stops around town, claiming Harris was the “official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles.” The Eagles and their advertising agency quickly disavowed the posters as “counterfeit political ads” and had them removed.
Philly street artist Winston Tseng, who designed the artwork in the posters, said he had no idea how they ended up plastered throughout the city. In a statement after the incident, Tseng called the art, titled Political Endorsement, a work of satire.
So as one presidential candidate likes to say, let’s be clear: The Eagles organization has no position on the presidential race.
