He said he was humbled. I pointed out to him that running for president is about the most egotistical thing a person can do—decide that you and only you should be in charge of the country and the world.

He put his head down and laughed, and then, without prompting, looked up and compared himself with Donald Trump.

“What is real strength? Is it bombast? Is it swagger, braggadociousness? Is it strut? No, I think strength is seen in vulnerability. It’s seen in those people who stood before fire hoses and armed troopers unarmed,” Booker said. “I think it’s people who are willing to let the truth be told. We’re all imperfect folks trying to make a better nation, and I look forward to offering up a very strong spirit of love and kindness and grace and decency, along with my policy ideas, and put that before the American public. And I trust and have faith in America, and if that’s not what folks want right now, so be it. But I feel this sense of liberation tonight.”

For weeks, as other big-name candidates jumped in, “Where’s Cory?” became a running joke among Democratic operatives. He’d seemed like he was ready to go. Some figured he’d even announce in December. Then Elizabeth Warren announced her candidacy on New Year’s Eve, with the kind of big online launch that could have come out of him. Some figured he’d try to get out ahead of Kamala Harris, at least, seen as prime competition because they’re both black and both know that heavily black South Carolina, home of the third primary, will almost certainly be essential to their hopes of getting into the final round in the fight for the nomination. When people heard he was spending Martin Luther King Jr. Day in South Carolina, they assumed that was going to be announcement day. Then word spread that Harris was going to announce on King Day, picking that symbolism, and it seemed like she had boxed him out, though Booker’s team insists that it was a head fake all along.

The jokes were still going around through Thursday afternoon, after a small group of reporters had been quietly alerted to Friday’s plans and Booker was leaving Washington to head back home here. They were confused. Had he blinked? And if he hadn’t blinked, what was he waiting for? January was over. Big donors already knew the numbers of the other candidates. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders loom large with the potential to redefine everything, but the dynamics within the rest of the field seemed like they were beginning to set.

The answer, according to Booker’s people, was that they were building. Building and watching. Whatever benefit they would have gotten from moving more quickly, they decided, wouldn’t have matched the benefit of having more time to finesse their organization and plan.

Internally, as the other announcements piled up, Booker would repeat a line about how the process was like a hurdle race: “If you’re looking to the lanes to your left or your right, you’re going to trip.”