Cory Booker: Mayor or After-Dinner Speaker?

Plainfielders who can remember back as little as two or three years ago, when our city was awash in news reports of guns, murders, and Black-on-Hispanic violence, will be able to sympathize with Newark mayor Cory Booker as he struggles to turn around the pattern of guns, murder and violence in some of Newark's neighborhoods. The latest with the murders of three college students this weekend.

Some people want him to fail, and they are not all in Newark.

Cory Booker is on the hot seat now. Newarkers, who took him at his word that he wanted to change things in the state's largest city, are now expecting him to stand and deliver.

But, truth be told, Cory Booker does not always help himself.

The flap last week over the YouTube posting of his unflattering remarks about housing activist Judith Diggs (see "YouTube Jersey: Fame, Infamy and Nonfamy") are only the tip of the iceberg. Today's Ledger runs a story gathering more of his verbal gaffes.

From where I sit (and having volunteered for his first campaign), it seems like the Mayor needs to make up his mind: Is he the full-time mayor of Newark, totally dedicated to keeping things in Newark moving forward? Or is he the after-dinner speaker, hoping to play on a larger political stage and titillating out-of-town audiences with 'tales from the 'hood', which many find demeaning and unedifying.

Little mystery he is viewed by some in Newark with suspicion and distrust.

Probably the best advice he can get is from his friend and mentor, the Rev. William Howard --

"I think the mayor is using stereotypes that register with the stereotypes of some of the people beyond Newark," said the Rev. William Howard, a Newark pastor whom Booker considers a mentor. "It is very unfortunate. On the other hand, ironically as he spoke of this dear lady, he was speaking of her as a heroine of his. I think he's beginning to understand he can't do these stereotypes without there being this kind of public uproar about what he says."

Politics is a rough sport. Mayor Booker will either learn to get it right or someone else will be the mayor of Newark.

---

Ledger, Monday, 8/6/2007

• "For Booker, often-told tales turn into trouble"
• "Slayings of 3 friends, other shootings bring call for mayor's resignation"

-- Dan Damon

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