With love, Cory Booker. Inside one long-shot bid for the White House.

The first time New Hampshire state Sen. Martha Hennessey heard Sen. Cory Booker speak, he reminded her of a Baptist preacher. “He was so ‘love and hope,’” she says. “Frankly, I was almost in tears.”

At the same time, she thought to herself, I’m not sure America is going to like this. This might be a little touchy-feely.

Senator Hennessey and her husband hosted the presidential candidate overnight in early summertime, as part of his circuit of homestays to get to know the state. When he arrived at their home in Hanover, she was still driving back from a late session at the statehouse. It was up to her husband to figure out what to feed an ex-football star turned vegan. The verdict? Rice cakes with freshly ground almond butter. 

The next morning, as the couple’s Maltese-poodle mixes climbed into Senator Booker’s lap, the 50-year-old bachelor chatted with them and, at his staff’s urging, told them about his new girlfriend, actress and activist Rosario Dawson. “It’s like he was a friend that was visiting us from college,” says Senator Hennessey. But while she enjoyed the visit, the New Hampshire Democrat – who’d been hoping to endorse a female