Cory Booker surrenders

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.peoplesworld.org/cory-booker-surrenders/

Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., in his appearance on last Sunday's "Meet the Press," said he was nauseated by the attacks on private capital. He said Mitt Romney's firm, Bain Capital, "has done a lot of good." He added that he was sick of all the political attacks, "Stop the attacks on Jeremiah Wright and stop attacking Bain Capital," he demanded.

Frankly that comparison made me sick.

Everybody knows that the Republicans used Rev. Wright to stoke the fires of racism and division in order to try to defeat Obama in 2008. They are planning to open up a new attack campaign using the Wright issue for this year's election. I agree this racist manipulation of the voters should be stopped.

On the other hand, Booker knows that Romney is playing the race and class card when he says that because of his experience in the private sector he knows how to create jobs and Obama doesn't. This is Romney's core argument. This is why he thinks he should be president. The fact is that his company destroyed a whole lot of jobs too and what it mainly created was huge profits and great personal wealth for him. Which is what firms like Bain Capital do. If the Democrats can't criticize what Romney did at Bain it will be very difficult to defeat him. They have to take on and defeat Romney's core argument if they are to win.

Booker was so openly critical of Obama on "Meet the Press" that David Gregory, the show's host, had to assure his viewers that Booker was a supporter of the president.

<snip>

You can't blame the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s on Rev. Wright. A lot of people understand that the 1percent got rich from exporting our jobs, from war and from manipulating the financial markets. That's why a majority want to curb the power and increase the taxes of the super-rich.

Mayor Booker may have burned a very big bridge this time. He is in effect waving the flag of surrender in the face of the Republicans, who are using this election to qualitatively set back the democratic rights and economic well being of the working class and racial minorities.

(People's World allows more than 4 paragraphs under a Creative Commons license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/)

[ELI BOY 1950]

1. Not One Of US

COREY IS DONE...LETS NOT BE LABOR THE POINT...NO MORE BOOKER TALK....LETS CUT OUR LOSSES AND BUY ANOTHER STOCK...
BAD GUY, IN IT FOR HIMSELF.

[Starry Messenger]

2. OK.

I thought the article was interesting. Sorry for wasting your time.

[ellenfl]

4. booker's not done, as much as many here would like him to be. and yelling doesn't make it so.

he'll be a little tarnished for a while but perhaps this was needed to stop him from believing his own hype.

that said, i still think it was a setup. what has been the discussion since sunday?

ellen fl

[6000eliot]

8. I don't have to agree with everything Booker says to admire him.

I don't agree with everything the president says, either, but I still support him.

[emulatorloo]

15. Seems a bit too cozy with Chris Christie for my tastes, but

To each his or her own.

[Bake]

29. A setup??? Really?

Did Gregory put a gun to his head and make him say bad things about the President???

Not just no but HELL NO.

Booker is done as a Democrat.

Bake

[Change has come]

5. The article is interesting!

Thanks for posting. Some will agree and others won't.

[Starry Messenger]

9. Thank you!

I thought it was a different perspective from ones earlier in the week. I'm glad you found it interesting!

[byeya]

24. I found it interesting too

If the mayor of a major New Jersey city feels he needs to put distance between himself and the President, I think it tells us something about Obama's standing in a consistently Democratic state.

[CatWoman]

27. and just what that be, pray tell

?

[Change has come]

3. Please define "US"

Mayor Booker is not a Democrat?

[DontTreadOnMe]

7. Us vs Them

Us = not pandering to corporate campaign contributors
Them = shill for anyone who gives them money, fraud, not ready for prime time.

Additional edit:
I live in NJ... this was a career ending move by Cory. It's not going down very well here in Jersey.

[southernyankeebelle]

6. I am with you. I even sent an email to the president asking to remove him from speaking

for you. He has really hurt the president.

[bigwillq]

11. Hello.

Welcome to DU!

[Iggo]

19. WHAT'S THAT? I DIDN'T HEAR YOU!!!

[obamanut2012]

21. There is a "Trash Thread" function on DU

I found this article interesting.

[mitchtv]

10. kick

I thought I liked him, but now I don't trust him

[Starry Messenger]

13. He's been on my radar as an Education "reformer"

for about two years. I'm sad he would equate Bain Capital with an actual human who does actual good things in life, like Rev. Wright, that seems pretty deep down the rabbit hole even for a Wall Street centrist.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. I'm glad he was unable to sustain his ruse any longer

The man is insincere and cloying in a way that I hope is going out of style in politics at long loving last. Smarm wrapped in hype.

[rufus dog]

14. There is no defense of what Booker did unless you claim he is not ready for prime time

IMO he was paying off the people who pay him. If it was a mistake then he is damn stupid, and I don't think he is. Regardless the bus needs to back up a few times over him. Have a nice friggen life as a minor NJ player Cory.

[woolldog]

16. Leave Booker alone

He made a mistake and apologized. He's still one of the leading lights in the next generation of the Democratic party. He's a future governor and POTUS.

[ibegurpard]

17. good god, I hope not!

he's a privatization pusher.

[woolldog]

25. He's not a rigid ideologue, true

But there's nothing wrong with using ideas that work. It'd be ridiculous to think that the left has a monopoly on good policy ideas that work.

Politics shouldn't always trump policy.

[TheKentuckian]

31. What are these good and workable regressive or conservative policies?

Platitudes shouldn't trump policy either.

[Starry Messenger]

33. Selling public education to corporate control is fucking stupid.

Pardon my French.

[woolldog]

34. Have you watched the documentary "The Lottery"?

I recommend it.

[Starry Messenger]

35. Instead of watching movies about school I actually teach in a public school.

Big difference.

[woolldog]

36. Ah, figures

your livelihood depends on keeping the current system in place. Of course youre against those looking for innovative solutions.

[Starry Messenger]

40. Reality. Not movies.

I recommend it.

[woolldog]

41. So unless one teaches in a public school

their opinion is invalid. Got it.

[Starry Messenger]

43. Do you get all of your political insights from movies?

Just checking.

[woolldog]

49. You're behaving like a bully and a thug.

[Starry Messenger]

50. Tell me about the rabbits George.

[ibegurpard]

51. solutions for what?

public schools that do an excellent job where there is money, family and community support for the value of an education? public education fails in blighted urban wastelands because of social problems that no one wants to tackle and privatization vultures use that failure to push their schemes on a gullible public.
your "solutions" are looking for a problem...solve the social problems plaguing us and education will fix itself.

[woolldog]

52. Thanks for the substantive response.

Last edited Fri May 25, 2012, 02:00 AM - Edit history (1)

1. If you're right and poor performance has to do with deep rooted social problems: those problems aren't going to be solved in one or two generations. So what do we do in the meantime? Give up on those kids? The public schools are failing them right now. It doesnt do any good to say fix the social problems and education will fix itself. In fact, that attitude will only make any deep rooted social problems worse by continuing a cycle of poverty, poor education, unemployment etc. I'm in favor of trying anything that will begin to break that vicious cycle now, not at some distant time in the future where low income Americans aren't plagued by social problems.

2. What the success of charter schools in some of the most blighted areas shows me is that there's something more going on than just poor environment. These schools are taking children with some of the same poor backgrounds, single parent homes, low income households and they are succeeding with them. They are doing it in innovative ways like extending the school year and massively upping the number of hours kids spend in school. And that's why I found the Lottery to be such an informative documentary. They have the flexibility to do things that public schools cant do (maybe partly because of teacher's unions and other entrenched interests? I dunno). But they are working.

3. I'm not even sure social problems are the entire story. Even looking at the wealthiest districts, public education in America sucks compared to the rest of the world.

edit: found the documentary is available online at the following link: http://soetalk.com/2011/03/01/watch-the-feature-documentary-the-lottery-online/

[Starry Messenger]

18. If that is so, then he'd better get used to public scrutiny of his statements.

That's pretty much how this works.

[obamanut2012]

22. I hope he stays far, far from the White House

He is definitely no Barack Obama, nor a Bill Clinton.

I had thought he might make a good governor for NJ, but NJ DUers say this is playing very badly in NJ.

I'm very disappointed in him, and even more so since Starry Messenger has said he s an "education reformer." I would think that would also play badly in NJ, which is known for having a very strong teachers union.

[Starry Messenger]

23. "Cory Booker has crossed the aisle before — on school reform"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/cory-booker-has-crossed-the-aisle-before--on-school-reform/2012/05/23/gIQAxQ7kjU_blog.html

This isn’t the first time that Booker has sided with Republicans over the leader of his own party.

Booker has made school reform a key initiative of his administration in New Jersey’s biggest city. And he has been an outspoken supporter of the school reform policies of the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, which include an expansion of charter schools, the end of teacher tenures, and the use of student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. He has called the state’s largest teachers union a group of “bullies and thugs.”

<snip>

According to this story in the Star-Ledger newspaper, Booker and Christie last month both spoke at the national policy meeting of the American Federation for Children. The federation’s board chair is Betsy DeVos, a key member of the DeVos family, which has spent millions to support efforts to promote vouchers and promote reforms that are furthering the privatization of public education.

She is, incidentally, wife of Dick DeVos, who is the son of the co-founder of Amway, and the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the private military contractor once known as Blackwater USA and now called Xe Services LLC.

The DeVos family were also heavy funders of Prop 8. This is the far-right of the aisle.

[MelungeonWoman]

45. Ooh, bullies and thugs, eh?

I see Booker is a graduate of the Alan Simpson Charm School.

[woolldog]

26. You're right he's no Clinton or Obama....

....he's to the left of both.

[white_wolf]

30. He's pro "education reform"

That's pretty right wing. If he's to the left of Obama and Clinton it's just shows how far right the Democratic party had drifted over the years.

[woolldog]

38. Who isnt for education reform?

That's not a republican or democratic idea. And if it is who cares. I'm tired of the extremes of both parties being reflexively against any solutions the other side offers.

[white_wolf]

39. Education reform in this case means privatization and charter schools.

We should oppose any efforts to privatize education.

[woolldog]

53. why?

[obamanut2012]

20. I was appalled at what Cory Booker has done the last two weeks or so

I had always had a decent amount of respect for him, for he's been a real hands-on mayor. Until now.

[Ruby the Liberal]

28. Yeah, this made for GREAT ad copy.

Surprised it took them so long.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002721542

[lunatica]

32. He was signalling to the Corporations that he's theirs and

didn't stop to think about the idiocy of what he was saying. I doubt he meant Obama any harm, but he was looking out for his own future, trying to reassure the 1% that he was on their side.

I really liked him, but I sure don't now. He's obviously quite self-serving and has been playing the role rather than being it.

[DeSwiss]

37. K&R

[center]Mayor Booker 'splains what he meant:

''Oooooo Noooo! I didn't mean for it
to sound as bad as the way I said it.
I meant for it to sound much better
than it did. It just sounded bad
because the way people keep repeating
what I said. So the people who keep
repeating me are really the ones who're
making me sound bad because of the
way I said what I said sounded bad when
it wasn't what I meant it to sound like. See?''
[/center]

- Rmoney/Bouquer ~ 2016!

[autorank]

42. I knew that's what he meant

Thank you.

Wasn't Booker the mayor who sold out his school system to that Facebook jerk who has the crackpot views on education.

How ironic! A guy who founds a service where nobody reads anything is telling people how to teach reading.

[DeSwiss]

48. LOL, yes he did do that, didn't he?

And sold it out to such a swell guy too, huh? That Mark Zuckerberg, is a really, really swell guy, isn't he? He's even decided (so far) to keep his US citizenship and stick around so he can be more easily sued. What a guy!

But I'm beginning to suspect that whole ''recuse's the neighbor from a burning house'' was a stunt. It seems that Cory's rewritten his role, and will now appear as the comic relief for the rest of the election season!



Newark Mayor Cory Booker Breaks Into Building, Abducts Woman Inside

[Thrill]

44. He earned his

Bain donations. Thats for sure. Money is all that matters to Politicians. Especially ones with high aspirations

[WillyT]

46. Did You Catch This:

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002721542



& Rec !!!

[coalition_unwilling]

47. What a tool. He should be expelled from the Democratic Party

forthwith.