"... known for his chummy relationship with Republican Gov. Chris Christie and heat-of-the-moment heroics, looks to have found himself tangled with Democratic Party elite over the last 24 hours."
Why did the two-term mayor, who many considered the likely first African-American president pre-Obama 2004 convention speech, draw the ire of his fellow Democrats? During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday, Booker called the Obama campaign’s attack against private equity “nauseating,” going on to compare the strategy to planned media attacks on the president by outside conservative groups referencing Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Within hours the mayor put together a nearly 4-minute Youtube soundbite clarifying his support for the president and the vetting of presumptive GOP-nominee Mitt Romney’s business record, but still reiterated his frustration with negative campaigning and his feeling of nausea. Many have speculated that Booker’s video explanation came following immediate behind-closed-door rebukes from DNC and Obama campaign headquarters, as the Morning Joe men have since compared the footage to a ‘hostage video.'
ADDED:
Allahpundit asks the key question:
Why did Booker do it? Why did he go so "wildly, wildly off-message, so much so as to draw a public rebuke from Axelrod and a thinly veiled one from The One himself"?
I assume his thinking was that, since he’s planning to run for higher office sooner or later, he should take advantage of his MTP spotlight to make a splash with potential Wall Street donors. He was bound to tick off a bunch of Obama campaign staff and other powerful Democrats in the process, but he knows they’ll forgive him soon enough if he looks primed to beat Christie or replace Lautenberg in the Senate.
Isn't he better off now than he was before?
Posts
54 comments:
Booker's problem is that at some level, he's the actual bi-partisan Mayor Pol that Obama promised to be.
The Obama campaign doesn't like the comparison...
Booker has seen the benefits & positives that can come from private investments, compared those to what he has seen from govt boondoogles and has determined he favors the private sector.
Booker trees Washington.
This is a good moment for Booker. Obama is going down the path of the progressive Jews and Euro-Left embracing post modern post communist Green and Socialist beliefs. Which come with a hatred of capitalists.
And that is driving Europe into the toilet.
So if Obama is on the losing side of an ideology...great opportunity for Corey Booker to have his own sort of Sista Soulja Moment and imply to the country now watching the EU destroy itself and not just the big donors...that he is more centrist.
If this gets Team O to re-think going this negative this early, Booker will have done them a huge favor. The only thing Obama has going for his is that people (still) want to like him, but I'm guessing that well is running dry. If it dries out before November Obama could make Mondale's showing look good.
If the Romster really wanted to shake things up, there's always a national unity ticket.
(Moochelle's shriek would be heard on Mars, no doubt
Why would a politician tell the truth?
he/she made a horrible mistake?
Pogo,
I was going to say "Booker TO's Washington" but you beat me to the pun.
Booker and Christie are both North Jersey dudes. I went to school w/ North Jersey dudes. We need North Jersey dudes in politics..Springsteen being an exception.
"Why did Booker do it? Why did he go so "wildly, wildly off-message, so much so as to draw a public rebuke from Axelrod and a thinly veiled one from The One himself"?"
I saw that interview. I was much impressed. I like to think he did it because he believed what he said.
Maybe because private equity, and the finance industry generally, has done, and will do, more for Newark than the Federal Government?
Make no mistake - Booker's a Dem, but then so was Tip O'Neil and Zell Miller. There were once Dems who could work with Republicans to actually do good things (and not just waste money, which is Washington's only real bipartisan activity), and Booker seems to be such a Dem.
Unlike Obama, Booker and Chris Christie can't just print more money, so they have to try to find actual solutions for their respective mountains of problems. Same goes for Scott Walker and Bobby Jindal. Hell, even Cuomo is taking a stab at reform, though it's been effectively parried by the usual suspects.
Why did he go so "wildly, wildly off-message, so much so as to draw a public rebuke from Axelrod and a thinly veiled one from The One himself"?"
Heaven forbid a city mayor go off message. Sheesh.
Manchin from WV was, I think, the first national Democrat to realize that being associated with Obama isn't a good long-term career move. I think we're seeing the beginning of Obama's transformation into Willy Loman.
Why would anyone consider Romney's job destruction record off-limits?
Ritmo, who said Romney's record at Bain was off-limits? Methinks Booker is worried that the Back-to-1968 strategy is going to work about as well for Democrats in 2012 as it did in 1968.
Booker is naseated by the distortion in the ad (read Kimberely Strassel's Wall Street Journal article from last week to see how), and the destructiveness to the economy if such attacks are allowed to stand unrebutted. However, it is not "off limits".
Mark, are you trying to tell me that Romney's not the least bit squeamish about his job destruction record?
Booker's job is to represent his constituents in metropolitan New York, rich suits who commute through Newark from surrounding areas to get to and from Wall Street. But Obama has nine states he can pick up in November filled with people whose lives and livelihoods were ruined solely for Romney's benefit.
To claim that Booker's got a Democratic presidential strategy in mind and at stake is as tone deaf as believing that Romney cares about unemployment.
On an unrelated note, who will do the deed of making C-Fud's head explode by reminding him that private equity not only employs better educated and less toofless non-Jews than he, but also Jews?
Trade-offs, trade-offs.
It is refreshing to see someone who isn't afraid to be honest about what he thinks
Ritmo, I think any conversation about economic issues hurts Obama. Not with everyone (you're a True Believer, for instance) but in the end whatever pain Bain caused is going to look like peanuts to the folks in flyover country.
I'll repeat: Obama's only strength is that people want to like him. If he pisses that away he's going to be embarrassed in November.
You sure like to think in black-and-white and absolutes, Mark. But in the end, you're not the only voter. So to claim that the ads of all the people who were hurt deliberately by a callous jerk like Romney, that those ads won't matter as much as the painful emergency economic surgery performed by an Obama cleaning up the massive mess left to him is presumptuous in the extreme.
But then again, since you want to simplify every angle into a matter of plain old "niceness", ok. Obama's more likeable, but maybe that's related his not a bully, who gets off on causing economic pain and financial hardship for others. Too bad you can't say the same for Romney.
Some bullies simply bully people out of jobs. They cause pain in the way that's available to them. One day it was a forced haircut, the next, forced layoffs. The connection's not that difficult to draw.
You make it really easy, without even trying, for Romney to look like an asshole. Even the Republicans who called him a "vulture capitalist" must see this coming. I'm glad we had real capitalists in the GOP primary who understood that wealth creation wasn't supposed to be about decimating communities with massive layoffs.
I do not distain the discussion of Bain but Brooker's comments show how pols are hookers for who ever has the most money-- in this case the Johns, or Diamonds, are just across the river on Wall Street ready to pay for an easy ride.
Get Thee Back To The Plantation
Massa is VERY unhapppy
"...but maybe that's related his not a bully, who gets off on causing economic pain and financial hardship for others. Too bad you can't say the same for Romney."
Talk about thinking in Black and White.
Pinning everything on a narrative of Mitt Romney as Snidley Whiplash with Funny Pajamas (who, BTW, as a child may have picked on a kid once, but accounts vary) isn't exactly a sign of confidence.
Romney has never been my guy. But Obama is every bit as bad as I'd feared he'd be. Pardon me if I think that a significant number of people who voted their hearts instead of their brains last time around are going to reconsider which organ to listen to this time.
Was slavery a nostalgic time for you, Fen? Does it bring back happy memories?
I notice that no one else's mind leaped to slavery when discussing two black politicians. Only Fen's.
This Bain stuff is noise to me. So Bain buys a company which may cut 100% of jobs because they're going out of business, cuts fewer and people are pissed?
To resist accusations of all-or-nothing thinking, Mark, it might behoove you to state what you think Obama actually did wrong, instead of saying he's "every bit as bad as (you'd) feared he'd be."
Talk about painting a caricature.
You find it supposedly cowardly to paint a picture of Romney as a bully who doesn't care about anything or anyone but himself, financially or otherwise. What if it succeeds? Justifiable? Not? Why?
It seems like you're the one who's afraid. You've already rationalized a reason for why Obama would win (likeability) while providing your own personal escape hatch to avoid accepting the legitimacy of a re-election win. By saying he's "baaaaaaad".
That's deep.
"painful emergency economic surgery"
That is hysterical. Very funny.
I'll be laughing when your tax rate goes up past 67%, Michael. That will be fucking hilarious. No one to whore themselves out to you anymore. What a riot!
Keep up the smugness. You're about as arrogant as the robber barons of the 1920s before they realized that the 1930s were not bound to be their decade. Neither were the 1940s. Or even the 1960s.
How long will you wait until people forget about the way you fucked up the new millenium for them?
Oh, that's right. I forgot. You'll be dead by then.
But your money won't be.
Better hope your heirs are more worthy than Warren Buffet's. But either way, the gov't will probably squeeze it from them anyway.
What a lack of a legacy you leave. That must really suck.
O Ritmo Segundo: Was slavery a nostalgic time for you, Fen?
Nostalgic? The Democrat party still practices slavery, so its hardly nostalgic.
I notice that no one else's mind leaped to slavery when discussing two black politicians.
So now you're a mind reader too?
I guess its time to renew the PSAs of your admission you are only here to fling feces and stink up the thread.
brb.
Fuck off ritmo. I am enjoying my Obama tax rates. He is our man.
But please type that phrase again, you dumb bastard, it was delightful.
I didnt fuck up their millenium, they did.
I will leave a legacy of three wonderful well educated, privately educated, adults who are pulling their own weight in the world without assistance from me. I have supported a school in El Salvador that I think will remember me fondly.
You? You seem miserable. I hope if you have children you do not infect them with that attitude. Bad in the success category.
/ah yes, here it is:
PSA re Ritmo Troll
For those who feel a need to waste their time responding to Ritmo, it's worth reposting a Ritmo admission of what he's up to at Althouse, and why he comments here:
Ritmo said: "It's good to know that the stupidest threads are just ripe for the threadjacking. I'll be sure to leave a trail of turds on every one of the brain droppings here that suit my fancy. Getting you shit-eaters to complain about the taste after opening your mouths wide and saying "Ahhhh..." to every bad idea under the sun is very satisfying, I must admit." - 10/16/10 10:28 AM
Awwww.... You mad, Michael? Wiser "I-"Bankers than you seem to be a little more wary of Obama's Act II than you. I mean, you must be pretty dumb and myopic to forget that elite jackals won't be anywhere as integral to his re-election as they were to the recovery, measly as you find it. Economic populism is such a bitch, ain't it. But at least you have kids who will grow up during a time when self-sufficiency alone won't gain them the respect that you think it should.
El Salvador?! Well, that sounds just peachy! I'm sure your alleged efforts at "reaching out" and being globally minded are so much more noble than they seem. Someone as selfish as you just couldn't be in it for simple repatriation. And yet, giving back to an inner city in America would have just been beneath you, I take it?
I am not miserable, merely moral. And don't you ever fucking forget it. It's a kind of morality that stands regardless of where the money lies, which is why you don't recognize it.
What advice will you give your kids on how to protect their name and their assets in an age when the political prostitution that served you so well just doesn't carry the same currency?
I'm worried about you, Michael. You seem to equate money with happiness and self-worth. Surely you aspire to be something more in life (spiritually, that is) than Cameron Frye's dad.
Obamacare -- bad, bad, bad.
Stimulus -- useless payola for supporters -- bad bad bad.
Continuation of Bush's worst civil liberties policies -- bad bad bad.
Crony capitalism (GE, Goldman Sachs, Solyndra, etc.) -- bad bad bad.
Racialism -- bad bad bad.
Enemies lists -- bad bad bad.
Counterproductive energy policies -- bad bad bad.
Poisoned relations with allies -- bad bad bad.
I could go on, but obviously picking on someone on the playground at the age of 13 or so shows much more about a grown man's character than any of the above results.
(In other words Ritmo, you are useful as a foil, and I would actually hate to change your mind, whatever part of it is actually yours and not bought-and-paid for.)
I can say that I saw all of this because I've always seen Obama as a grifter at heart, interested only in personal power, petty wins, and pretty poses. God help us if he'd actually been ambitious.
Romney strikes me as another Rockefeller/Bush (Sr) Republican. Not ideal, but not pathological either. At this point I'll take it.
It is totally in character for Cory Booker to flip off the Democrat establishment, having won a protracted battle with Sharpe James, the corrupt former Democrat mayor, since his first run for the office in 2002. The people who are shocked about what he said are the people who don't know him.
If he succeeds Christie as governor of New Jersey, will the next step for Booker be the White House? He's got education, charisma, and toughness. But his personal life is shrouded in secrecy. He's not married; and if he has a girlfriend, that fact hasn't surfaced in the news media. James insinuated a number of times that he was gay. If he is, then the presidency will be out of reach for Booker.
It's ok, Fen. You already proved that the only thing you have to say about Obama and Cory Booker involves a plantation metaphor. A more intelligent "response" from you wouldn't be worth the pixels displaying it, assuming it exists.
So of course you tell everyone that your fuel's spent and your engine's shot. It is.
But I am having a fun time with Michael. How much do you think he would pay me to shut up? Surely that would easier to him than publicly making the elusive argument necessary for saving his financial skin.
I like the platitudes, Mark. They'd work better on a cover of MAD Magazine, but they suit your level of analysis. I'll let you live with them. Surely an effective rebuttal for every last one exists. But why bother?
The two that are funniest, however, are the assertion that Obama's a more egregious crony capitalist than Romney and the GOP and that suddenly deciding to get warrants for wiretapping is a continuation of Bush's "worst civil liberties policies".
Resist the temptation to think in soundbites, my friend. This is a blog, and no one's getting paid for posting here. Not even Michael.
P.S. There are allies in the world apart from Saudi Arabia (lol) and Israel. Someday you might actually learn about them.
Ritmo: So of course you tell everyone that your fuel's spent and your engine's shot. It is.
Huh? Where did I say anything even closely resembling that? You're just making stuff up now
Ritmo: But I am having a fun time with Michael.
Sure, you and Charlie Sheen -"wiiiining"
Fen:
Michael's a proud dad. Try to leave him out of this.
Instead, ask him how old his kids were when they sold their first toxic asset?
About the same age when he sold his first junk bond?
Lol. I kid. I kid.
So Cory Booker wandered off the reservation, huh?
Maybe he needs a talking-to from Elizabeth Warren. She is an expert on such things, ya know.
Ritmo. You make me laugh! You are such a dumb pompous fuck I cant resist bugging you. Your resentments give me such pleasure. You really have no idea how fun it is to read your insane raves. We all enjoy them greatly. Saddle up your high horse, hop on and fuck off. You dumb dumb bastard.
67% tax rates. Painful emergency economic surgery.
Fantastic stuff, lad. Excellent stuff.
Ritmo, to each his own. I happen to think my analyses cleave less closely to any party line than does yours, but that's obviously a matter of opinion.
(And MAD Magazine is funny; Julia et. al. are just sad little screeds. I'd be happy to write something brutal about Obama that got published by MAD. Whoever put together the Julia thing needs a hug.)
You say "Surely an effective rebuttal for every last one exists. But why bother?" That's a fancy way of saying "we really don't want to go there, so why don't we just ridicule/denigrate/demonize anyone who does?"
Obama's record is a minefield for his supporters. Therefore, y'all will campaign against Snidely Whiplash and His Funny Pajamas.
Good luck with that.
That profanity is really fantastically intelligent stuff, Michael.
The same stuff junk bonds and toxic assets are made out of.
Anywho, I hear Frankfurt is on Line #1 for you, Michael. They'd like to cash in their mortgage-backed assets.
Only in the south could you get away with such naive trash-talk. Wall Street would eat you alive.
...following immediate behind-closed-door rebukes from DNC and Obama campaign headquarters, as the Morning Joe men have since compared the footage to a ‘hostage video.'
Did Booker use the "Hawaiian Good Luck sign" during the video?
... the Korcoms [North Korean Communists] didn't know what the finger meant. This was further demonstrated in the second film in which a US Navy Officer flipped off the cameraman. They left it in. We now had a weapon! Back in our rooms we were elated, this was one more thing we could use to discredit the propaganda we were being forced to grind out. Several crew members expressed caution, but the general attitude was use it. We had been captured, but we never surrendered. Damn the Koreans, full fingers ahead.
The finger became an integral part of our anti-propaganda campaign. Any time a camera appeared, so did the fingers. A concern grew among us that sooner or later the Koreans would notice this and ask questions. It was decided that if the question was raised, the answer was to be that the finger was a gesture known as the Hawaiian Good Luck sign, a variation of the Hang Loose gesture. In late August one of the duty officers asked about the finger and seemed to be accepting of the explanation, but most of us realized that our zeal to ruin their propaganda would come back to haunt us, eventually.
James insinuated a number of times that he was gay. If he is, then the presidency will be out of reach for Booker.
Credit where it's due: Obama may have been forced into it, and his actual statements were an exercise in building escape routes for weasels, but he moved the ball forward in terms of the acceptance of gay lifestyles.
I love it that when told to go cut his own switch by the DNC/Whitehous, he came back with a baseball bat and beat his point home for another four minutes.
Mark, arguing detailed facts isn't something I'm above. I just find it doesn't go as far here. Take that up with your friends here. And now we're in an election season anyway, so I can see where the narrative's heading. The left tried facts, the GOP revolted. Who cares anymore?
But here's the most salient fact for you: Presidential administrations don't exist in a vaccuum. They're contingent upon the circumstances in which they take shape. History does not begin anew with a blank slate at each election.
I know this fact eludes you, but it doesn't elude Obama. Or Romney for that matter.
If you still have trouble, maybe refer to Don Rumsfeld. He said something about going to war with the army you have. Well, you enact policies in the state in which the country that was left to you.
I know. It's not fast enough. Not hard enough. Not enough octane and cocaine.
But then, that's reality for you. I guess if Democrats were less arrogant, they'd ask the GOP to create even bigger messes before standing around and bitching about the pace of clean-up.
But what if the GOP were less arrogant?
Hahahaha. What a funny idea.
But then, that's reality for you. I guess if Democrats were less arrogant, they'd ask the GOP to create even bigger messes before standing around and bitching about the pace of clean-up.
You know, the whole Slurpee-schtick wasn't funny the first time around. And somebody with really big ears made the statement that if the economy was still in the toilet come 2012, he deserved to be a one-term President.
I just hope the electorate makes it so.
I expect more democrats to jump the U.S.S Obama after its taken on a little ice. I think by july the democrat senators running for re-election will take good healthy shits on obama at every opportunity so they can save their skins. Its not anymore complicated than people don't want to swim with an anchor. No real mystery
I just hope the electorate makes it so.
And wouldn't it really suck for you if they were too smart to do so.
Not worried about myself Ritmo. If Obama is re-elected it will just prove H. L. Mencken correct that "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
I just hope Mencken was wrong.
Booker will be president someday, if Obama doesn't ruin him during this election.
Is there any better illustration of just how non-bipartisan Obama is, as he flies around the country complaining that he needs bipartisanship?
Booker would do better to steer clear.
"Obama is going down the path of the progressive Jews"
You mean like the NYT which is run by an Episcopalian who loudly rejects his Jewish heritage and hates Israel as much as you do LOL? By the way, you find any more molesters to whitewash like you've done for Polanski and Sandusky?
So far he is auditioning best as Romney's running mate from my distance.
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