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Category: Cory Booker

2014 Gets Ugly Early

May. 15 Cory Booker, Election 2014, Essex County, Frank Pallone, Newark, North Jersey 4 comments

Pallone Says Booker Is Withholding Funds For AIDS Patients

By Art Gallagher | MoreMonmouthMusings.com

Frank PalloneCongressman Frank Pallone fired the first salvo of the 2014 Democratic U.S. Senate primary with a “scathing letter” sent to Newark Mayor Cory Booker complaining that the city of Newark is not fulfilling its obligations to the Hyacinth AIDS Foundation, a New Brunswick based non-profit that services patients with HIV/AIDS, according to a report in The Star Ledger.

The Star Ledger received a copy of the letter dated on Friday, May 10, before Booker received the original.

Booker’s staff dismissed the letter they haven’t seen yet, telling the Ledger that Hyacinth’s funding is working its way through the Newark bureaucracy and will be paid out this year earlier than it was last year.

CONTINUE READING…

Where In The World Is Cory Booker?

Apr. 26 Cory Booker, Election 2014, U.S. Senate 8 comments

Newark Mayor Away On Latest Out-of-State Fundraising Swing

By Art Gallagher | MoreMonmouthMusings.com

Booker CardNewark Mayor Cory Booker is not officially a candidate for U.S. Senate, but his Booker for Senate exploratory fund is raking in the Hollywood cash.

Last night Booker had a $5,000 per person fundraiser at the Beverly Hills home of producer Jerry Weintraub and Susan Elkins.  Jersey guy Bruce Willis was on the host committee, as were the Capshaw-Spielbergs and Meathead.

CONTINUE READING…

A Little Easter Softball

Apr. 01 Cory Booker, Easter 6 comments

Senator-in-Waiting Booker Continues to Focus on Anything But Newark

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Priorities: while the rest of the Internet was celebrating Easter 2013 Cesar Chavez, Save Jerseyans, Newark’s Tweeter-in-Chief Cory Booker participated in an ABC This Week roundtable AND pre-show web interview.

Softball season:

Meanwhile, back at home, the Brick City business community gathered to honor a slain IHOP manager who fell victim to a shooting last week.

Your next U.S. Senator, folks… any new takers on my travel ban idea?

Curfew for the City? Or Booker?

Mar. 28 Cory Booker, Essex County, Newark, North Jersey 4 comments

OPINION: Newark Really Needs a Mayor More Than a Curfew

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Cory Booker“We also want people to be safe and we’ve got to strike the balance. We need to start talking, questioning that. … And if you want to stay open later, maybe there should be certain requirements.”

Those are the words of Newark Mayor and professional tweeter Cory Booker as reported by CBS New York; he’s reportedly considering a citywide business curfew to stem a sharp uptick in violent crime.

I couldn’t help but laugh when I read this, Save Jerseyans! Crime isn’t funny. The logic behind this proposal is for the following reason:

Booker is a notorious absentee mayor. He’s constantly travelling outside of his city in pursuit of Frank Lautenberg’s open U.S. Senate seat; just last week, he was speaking at a Miami fundraiser. Even liberal The New York Times scrutinized his tendency to spend more time on social media than actually governing his city.

Would the people of Newark be better served by a business curfew? Or a curfew imposed on their travel-happy mayor?

It’s an open question. A voter-imposed travel ban on Mayor Booker for the remainder of his term might make the most sense.

Fear Isn’t All Bad

Mar. 23 Cory Booker, Education, Election 2014 2 comments

If Standardized Tests Aren’t the Answer, Then the Free Market is the Only Game in Town

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Cory Booker

Cory Booker said something that I agreed with this week, Save Jerseyans, during an appearance at NJPAC (h/t NJ.com):

The problem we have right now is we cannot get into a world of high stakes testing where teachers live in fear of standardized tests that don’t take into account the totality of the issues.”

Well, at least I agree in part.

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Pallone Boxed In By Booker

Mar. 13 Cory Booker, Election 2014, Frank Lautenberg, Frank Pallone, Monmouth County, U.S. Senate 6 comments

FDU Public Mind Poll is Bad News for Frank Pallone and the Politicos Who Want to Replace Him

By Art Gallagher | MoreMonmouthMusings.com

Frank PalloneThe hopes of Middlesex and Monmouth County mayors, freeholders and legislators hoping to move to Washington in early 2015 as the newly elected representative of the 6th Congressional district were set back a bit this morning by a new FDU Public Mind Poll that shows Newark Mayor Cory Booker dominating the Democratic field to replace Senator Frank Lautenberg.

Congressman Frank Pallone has been considered Booker’s main competition for the 2014 Democratic U.S. Senate nomination among the media and political establishment.  However,  12th District Congressman Rush Holt has almost twice the support among self identified Democrats than Pallone does, according the FDU’s survey.

FDU surveyed its respondents cable news viewing habits, polling the trustworthiness of CNN, FoxNews and MSNBC.  Given Holt’s surprising showing, they should have surveyed how many of their respondents are Jeopardy fans.  Holt is famous for being a five time Jeopardy winner and beating IBM’s supercomputer, “Watson,” on the TV trivia game show.

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Rising Star or Fallen Angel?

Feb. 25 Cory Booker, Election 2013, Essex County, Newark, North Jersey 4 comments

BEYOND THE FACADE: There’s a Lot to Like About Cory Booker Until You Dig Deeper And Discover There’s Nothing There

By Kristen Luciani | The Save Jersey Blog

Facebook Newark SchoolsI believe that a lot of politicians begin their careers because they have a noble desire to improve the lives of people they aspire to represent. The call to public service is very honorable, but once the promises have been made and the campaign draws to a close, the newly elected official needs to start working to achieve the intended goals.

Often, this process will pave the way for a successful official to advance through the ranks to serve at higher levels of government. However, in other cases, officials start out strong and then their past ideals seem to lose steam as they try to advance what appear to be their own personal agendas. Gone is the freshman eagerness, replaced with the seemingly addictive draw of higher office, with all of the power and prestige that goes along with it.

Cory Booker is one such example of a leader that seemed to fall prey to the glitz and glamour of public office. The beginnings of his political career were certainly characteristic of an aspiring and enthusiastic public servant, someone who was on a virtuous quest to better the lives of Newark residents while simultaneously improving upon the city’s safety, security and infrastructure in the wake of Sharpe James’s disastrous tenure. The hero of Street Fight!

His first term was largely deemed a success. Booker reduced the city’s structural deficit, improved upon development of downtown Newark, the first two hotels were constructed on his watch and the city saw its first supermarket in decades open in the Central Ward. Yes, major improvements came to Newark under Booker’s leadership and he inspired confidence in the voting public that he could continue to drive transformational change to a crime-ridden and debilitated city in one of the most affluent states in our union. In short, he began to make a name for himself, a critical component of his future political endeavors.

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NJ Voters Turn On Menendez

Feb. 21 Bob Menendez, Corruption, Cory Booker, Frank Lautenberg, Geraldo Rivera, U.S. Senate 8 comments

New Q Poll Suggests New Jersey Voters Have a Sinking Opinion of Their Embattled Senator

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Menendez on TVLast week I wondered aloud “what was wrong with you people” when a Monmouth Poll found very little public engagement with the serious allegations facing Bob Menendez. It was very disappointing stuff, Save Jerseyans!

Well, maybe this latest batch of Quinnipiac poll results indicates that that’s starting to change?

The essential details:

New Jersey voters disapprove 41 – 36 percent of the job U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez is doing, a 15-point drop in less than a month, and say 44 – 28 percent that he is not honest and trustworthy, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Today’s approval rating is down from a 51 – 33 percent score in a January 23 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University and is his lowest score since August, 2011 when he had a negative 39 – 42 percent approval rating.”

Hashing out which poll more accurately reflects voters’ mood may not matter. Unfortunately for the cause of good government, Senator Menendez has thus far received the support of national Democrat leaders who fully recognize that he’s (1) six years from another election (2) in a blue state. Translation: they think he can ride this scandal out barring a surprise development. But with numbers this ugly from Quinnipiac, we might have a different story to report today were Menendez up for reelection in 2014 instead of 2018; then you could expect to see another Torch-Lautenberg switcheroo at the 11th hour.

And speaking of 2014, Quinnipiac looked at hypothetical U.S. Senate fight for Frank Lautenberg’s open seat and found that “Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the Democrat, leads TV personality Geraldo Rivera, the Republican, 59 – 23 percent. Republicans back Rivera 54 – 23 percent, while Booker leads all other political, gender, income, age and regional groups in the state.” Rivera, who recently expressed interest in a run, can’t blame name recognition for his numbers. He nevertheless faces a “Buono-esque” polling gap (yeah, I coined that!) between himself and the frontrunner.

Click here to read the full polling report and data tables.