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TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today criticized a controversial tweet sent out by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan's staff last week, calling it "inflammatory and inappropriate." "The proof that it was (inappropriate) was that Steve ordered it taken down," Christie, who beat Lonegan in the 2009 Republican gubernatorial primary, said at a news conference in Trenton. "Steve never backs away from something controversial." The incident unfolded Thursday night as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the favorite to win the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, participated in a televised debate with his three primary opponents. During the broadcast, a Twitter account run...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker appears to be a slam dunk to win next week’s Democratic primary for the US Senate in New Jersey. Booker got an overwhelming 54 percent of the support — compared with 17 percent for nearest rival Rep. Frank Pallone and 15 percent for third-place Rep. Rush Holt — in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. The winner will run in October’s special election to replace Frank Lautenberg, who died in June at age 89 — and Booker leads that poll over GOPer Steve Lonegan by 25 points.

The conference room in the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters of LinkedIn was packed with the stars of Silicon Valley. Top executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter gathered around a table; the billionaire Sean Parker looked on from a back row. The guest of honor: Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark. "He's part of this tide," said Gina Bianchini, an entrepreneur who was at the meeting, in May 2009. "It feels like he's one of us." Mr. Booker personally has obtained money for the start-up, called Waywire, from influential investors, including Eric E. Schmidt, Google's executive chairman. A year after...

Three New Jersey Democrats running in a special U.S. Senate election got their first crack Monday night at the front runner, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, in the first debate among all four candidates in the abbreviated campaign. At times, they tried to gang up on Booker to show he’s less liberal than them on issues such as using public money to send children to private schools or revising health insurance laws even further. But largely, the four candidates found themselves in agreement and their differences were relatively nuanced. The four are running in a hastily scheduled Aug. 13 primary to...

METUCHEN – GOP Senate candidate Steve Lonegan opened his main headquarters here this morning, bashing Obama Democrats, dismissing Newark Mayor Cory Booker as a "failed mayor," and lustily embracing the movement conservative wing of the Republican Party. “You pick a mentor when you go to the U.S. Senate,” the Republican front-runner told a roomful of backers. “My two choices are Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.” Proudly pro life and pro gun, Lonegan said he couldn’t wait to see the look on the face of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on the occasion of Lonegan’s inaugural escort at the Capitol Building....

The family of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) on Monday endorsed Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D) in the New Jersey Senate race and criticized frontrunner Cory Booker (D) as a glory-seeking "show horse" who lacks their father's work ethic.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker officially launches his campaign for the U.S. Senate this morning, but before he was even out of the gate, the attacks against him had begun. Hours after Booker’s aides leaked the news yesterday that he will run in the special Senate primary in August to replace U.S. Frank Lautenberg who died this week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a blast email attacking the mayor’s celebrity status. "It remains to be seen whether Cory Booker the candidate can match Cory Booker’s celebrity persona in this kind of race, since campaigning is so much different from...

The death, at age 89, of Democratic senator Frank Lautenberg has put a wrinkle in the reelection plans of New Jersey governor Chris Christie. The cantankerous Republican enjoys high approval ratings and a chasmic lead over Barbara Buono, a Democratic rival so weak that former governor Brendan Byrne, now the Garden State’s Democratic elder statesman, has hinted she should think about dropping out. But the need to appoint an interim replacement for Lautenberg, and to schedule a special election to fill out his term through 2014, has created a pair of new challenges. First, does Christie hold the special election...

The list of keynote commencement speakers at Ivy League institutions for 2013 does not include a single conservative, a recent study authored by the conservative Young America’s Foundation (YAF) found. Instead seven of the elite schools opted to invite ideological liberal speakers such as media billionaire Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Joe Biden (D), Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D), Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), among others. Only Brown University, which chooses a commencement keynote from among its students, did not have a 2013 speaker who is generally associated with the left. YAF spokesman Adam Tragone told Campus Reform on Tuesday the list...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker made a statement on HBO's Real Time Friday that should please gun rights advocates across the fruited plain. Despite being for stronger gun laws, Booker said, "Legal gun buyers are not causing murders in Newark and Chicago and other places" … CORY BOOKER, NEWARK MAYOR (D-N.J.): To me, the data should drive our decision making. So I know, I’m not afraid of people having guns who are law abiding citizens. In the analysis of gun murders and shootings in my city, I could only find one in the entire time I’ve been mayor...The guns that are...

Cory Booker has filed a statement of organization for his U.S. Senate run according to documents posted on the Federal Election Commission website. The actual papers provide little detail about how much money the mayor of Newark has raised, but the papers, filed on January 8 are the first official step towards a run in 2014. His treasurer is listed as Judith Zamore.

Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker says the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), which spent $80.4 billion in fiscal 2012, is “not a government handout.” “I hope and understand that people are getting a better recognition that this is a program that really helps America, helps families in need,” Booker said on Friday, while describing his fourth day of living on a SNAP budget. "It’s not a government handout,” he said. “If anything, it’s a safety net that helps people through difficult times and bridges them towards stability.” …

Rhode Island’s blue-on-blue showdown is heating up. Famed litigator David Boies is taking a 96 percent pay cut to represent the state against recalcitrant public sector unions. The New York Times reports: Mr. Boies became involved, he said, because he was convinced that Rhode Island’s pension troubles were just the tip of a $5 trillion iceberg of unsecured retirement promises to the nation’s millions of public workers. “This is something that can cripple state and municipal governments at a time when the federal government is, more and more, cutting back on the services it provides,” he said. Public unions and...

This morning, I will begin living on a food budget of $30 a week / $4.32 per day. This is the financial equivalent of the budget provided to people participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, in the State of New Jersey. I will live only on a SNAP equivalent food budget for the next seven days. Undertaking what is referred to as the #SNAPChallenge began with a social media-based conversation on Twitter. A Twitter user tweeted me her opinion that "nutrition is not the responsibility of the government". This comment caused me to...

Stopping veteran Dem retirements is top priority for Reid, SchumerBy Alexander Bolton - 11/25/12 06:00 AM ET One of the highest immediate political priorities for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Democratic political guru Charles Schumer (N.Y.) is to persuade veteran colleagues not to retire in 2014. Democratic sources identify four senators as most likely to retire: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). Another possible veteran retirement is Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who has yet to announce his decision. But Democratic aides expect him to run...

NEWARK — A behind-the-scenes political maneuver by Newark Mayor Cory Booker to fill a vacant council seat with his choice led to a near-riot in city hall tonight, with dozens of residents rushing the council stage and police responding with pepper-spray. After weeks of jockeying for Rep. Donald Payne’s successor, Booker made an unprecedented personal appearance to cast the deciding vote with his council allies for Shanique Davis Speight, a longtime ally of power broker Stephen Adubato, over the angry objections of residents. "In the absence of a quorum, I have an obligation to sit in," Booker said, though he...

Mayor Cory Booker is known for his social media savvy, having helped direct emergency services in Newark, New Jersey to stranded citizens during snowstorms and field questions during Hurricane Sandy. Now he's taking the talk offline as he bet a Twitter trash-talker that he could live healthfully on food stamps for a month. The Democratic politician got into a dispute with a woman on Twitter who took issue with his dispelling of some free advice via Plutarch. 'An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics,' Booker wrote on Sunday morning. User @MWadeNC...

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker delivered a passionate defense of Democratic efforts to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, insisting it's about love of country. "Being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare. It's patriotism," Booker said, disputing an attack line often mentioned by Mitt Romney and his GOP allies. Everyone, Booker argued, must pay their "fair share" at a time when the country is facing the enormous burden of paying down debts incurred by two wars.

GEORGETOWN, S.C. — When Alexander the Great died at the age of 32 in 323 B.C., his once unbeatable army began a 2,900-mile withdrawal from India and headed home to Macedonia. As they retreated, the empire they had created collapsed behind them. To prevent pursuit, Alexander's royal cavalry and infantry dealt viciously with all internal dissent, destroyed cities and burned bridges. The Russians employed a similar scorched-earth tactic against Napoleon in 1812, as did the Red Army when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It's a maneuver now being employed both domestically and internationally by Barack Obama. The...

When the Obama campaign sent popular, telegenic, man-of-action Newark Mayor Cory Booker out to do a little surrogate-advocacy on their behalf last month, something happened that the Democrats certainly did not intend: Cory Booker made a very public display of intellectual integrity (I know, I know ... a rare beast in politics, but it can happen). On "Meet the Press", Booker said that Team Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's record at private-equity firm Bain Capital and other such petty campaign tactics were "nauseating" and made him "very uncomfortable." And it felt so good.But the Democrats didn't take kindly to Booker...

Winston Churchill captured what this presidential election is about when he observed “the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” It’s why the young black Democrat mayor of Newark, NJ, Cory Booker, got high level repudiation from the Obama campaign, including from the president himself, when he insolently suggested that Bain Capital, the investment firm once headed by Mitt Romney, might actually do positive things. Booker, an Obama campaign surrogate, went off script on Meet the Press when he refused to justify a campaign attack ad...

Cory Booker’s comments regarding Barack Obama’s attacks on Bain Capital were, for him, a “twofer.” I think he believes in the system and understands that profits are not evil. He is hardly a full throated capitalist but cannot buy into trashing his benefactors in downtown NYC. He actually believes that private sector money is critical to economic growth. Some of his time at Stanford was not wasted. More importantly, he is a man with big plans, a long range game plan, and the horses to execute. He wants to be POTUS. The second and more important part of the “twofer”...

WASHINGTON - President Obama's anti-capitalism attacks on Mitt Romney's long career as an investor who bankrolled businesses and created jobs isn't playing well in some Democratic circles. Indeed, the Democratic backlash Obama's campaign has been getting about its ads attacking Bain Capital, Romney's venture capital investment firm, is the political equivalent of a "man bites dog" story. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a close ally of Obama and a rising star in the Democratic party, called Obama's ads "nauseating to the American people." Former Tennessee Rep. Harold Ford Jr., another party leader who once headed the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, said...

"I'm a surrogate for the Obama campaign," said Newark Mayor Cory Booker during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, "I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity ... I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of the record of Bain Capital, they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses."Many a conservative commentator seized on Mayor Booker's pronouncement as a sign of weakness - that some within Obama's camp see the discussion of economic matters as a losing...

In a blistering new ad, the Republican National Committee catches the Obama Campaign lying to the press about their influence in strong-arming Newark Mayor Cory Booker into taking back his criticism of President Obama's attack on Bain Capital.

Newark mayor Cory Booker may have been reduced to filming “hostage videos” in which he apologizes for throwing sharp spikes of reason and temperance beneath the madly spinning wheels of the Obama re-election bus, but the Booker Insurgency continues to grow. Harold Ford Jr., formerly a Democrat congressman from Tennessee, was welcomed to the ranks on Monday. Ford was no small-time back-bencher. He took a credible shot at wrestling House leadership away from Nancy Pelosi, and served as leader of the Democratic Leadership Council - a now-forgotten artifact of an earlier time, when there really were “moderates” in the Democrat...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a Democrat who landed in hot water with his party on Sunday after criticizing President Obama’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital, may have found an unexpected ally in left-wing activist Van Jones. “An urban mayor who nearly DIED saving neighbor from a fire, has earned right 2 demand integrity & courage from other leaders,” Jones tweeted on Tuesday in a message addressed to Booker’s Twitter handle. Booker, who indeed did save a neighbor from a burning building earlier this year, has been on the receiving end of much criticism from Democrats and liberal...

Ed Rendell joins Harold Ford and Cory Booker as critics within Barack Obama’s own party of his electoral strategy of demonizing private equity. In a BuzzFeed article that focuses on the larger disconnect between Obama and Democratic Party institutions, Zeke Miller gets the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania — a state critical to Obama’s re-election hopes — on the record as decidedly uncomfortable with the tone of Team Obama’s attacks on Bain Capital: Rendell joined the chorus of criticism of Obama’s attacks on finance, whose leaders have written checks to many members of both parties. “I think they’re very disappointing,”...

One almost has to feel sorry for Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.  He showed up on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 yesterday probably expecting the type of softball questions that MSNBC hosts would toss at him. Instead, Anderson Cooper took a page from Cory Booker's criticism of  "nauseating" attacks on private equity firms such as Bain Capital and kept asking LaBolt how the Obama campaign can criticize Bain while simultaneously raising funds from the same type of companies. The clearly unprepared LaBolt spent the interview filibustering with a flurry of words that were designed not to answer the questions about the...

NBC's Andrea Mitchell says the media has given Mitt Romney a "free ride" by not dwelling on how long it took for his former primary rivals to formally endorse him. Mitchell says the media has always laid off of examining Romney's record and the clash between the elements that make up the Republican party. "They believe that the Bain Capital record is their best argument against Mitt Romney," NBC's Andrea Mitchell said about the Obama campaign. "What you pointed out in your opening segment, and the lead in to the Cory Booker interview, was that the media have not really...

NBC's Andrea Mitchell says the media has given Mitt Romney a "free ride" by not dwelling on how long it took for his former primary rivals to formally endorse him. Mitchell says the media has always laid off of examining Romney's record and the clash between the elements that make up the Republican party. "They believe that the Bain Capital record is their best argument against Mitt Romney," NBC's Andrea Mitchell said about the Obama campaign. "What you pointed out in your opening segment, and the lead in to the Cory Booker interview, was that the media have not really...

A furious Chris Matthews on Monday railed against Cory Booker for his "betrayal" and "sabotage" of fellow Democrat Barack Obama. A bewildered Matthews couldn't understand why the Newark mayor would "trash" the President. Howling over Booker's break from party loyalty, Matthews snarled, "... I think [this] was an act of sabotage. Whatever the intention was, [Booker] was trashing the entire Obama campaign of the summer." The Hardball host then played a clip of Obama "trying to defend himself against what looked like something like a betrayal." [MP3 audio here.] Talking to liberals David Corn and Howard Fineman, Matthews attempted to...

Campaign 2012: Newark's mayor succumbs to administration thought control after going off-script and praising the private-equity firm that succeeded in creating net jobs, unlike presidential investment Solyndra. The White House must have had a bad case of the vapors when Newark Mayor Cory Booker, viewed in some quarters as a practical, non-ideological problem-solver, praised the record of Mitt Romney's former private firm Bain Capital, before a national audience on NBC's "Meet The Press," and eschewed attacks of a type he found "nauseating." "I have to just say from a very personal level, I'm not about to sit here and indict...

That didn't take long. Dem Mayor Cory Booker said this morning on Meet the Press: The Obama ad against Romney is ‘nauseating.’ Bain Capital ‘has done a lot’ to support and grow business. “Stop attacking private equity!”.....Booker tonight: Romney’s years at Bain are fair game. “I encourage” the Obama campaign “to examine that record and discuss it” (Video)

NEWARK — Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital tonight for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house. "I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said in recounting the fire. Booker told The Star-Ledger he also suffered second-degree burns on his hand. The fire started in a two-story building on Hawthorne Avenue in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood, shortly before the mayor arrived home after a television interview with News 12 New Jersey. Five people were taken to the hospital for treatment: the mayor,...

Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark carried a woman out of a burning house and was treated for smoke inhalation on Thursday night. Mr. Booker arrived to his home in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood to find a neighbor’s house on fire, said Anne Torres, a spokeswoman. The Fire Department had not yet arrived, she said, and Mr. Booker went inside with two members of his security detail and rescued one woman. The mayor was treated at a hospital and released at 11:30 p.m. “Everyone is O.K.,” Ms. Torres wrote in an e-mail. < snip > The mayor told The...

NEWARK — Call him a "high-class, highfalutin huckster and hustler?" Well then, you can just forget about those Springsteen tickets. A day after Newark Mayor Cory Booker lashed out at Devils managing partner Jeff Vanderbeek — accusing him of exploiting the city — the mayor said the team owner turned down his request for seats to next month’s sold-out Bruce Springsteen concert at the Prudential Center.

The Mayor of Newark, New Jersey is making an offer he hopes city residents cannot refuse -- report your gun-owning neighbor, get $1,000. In a video, Mayor Cory Booker holds ten $100 bills as he explains how the new program works. People just have to anonymously call a number to report someone with an illegal gun and they get the dough. Here is the video:

Newark Mayor Cory Booker yesterday outlined a series of measures designed to monitor the flow of guns in and out of the state's largest city and to prevent gun dealers from opening shop in residential neighborhoods or near schools. Booker, joined by Gov. Jon Corzine and Attorney General Anne Milgram at a news conference yesterday afternoon, admitted the initiatives may not stop the bloodshed overnight, but called them necessary steps in order to curtail violence. The announcement comes nearly two weeks after four college-age Newark residents were shot in the head behind an elementary school in the Ivy Hill neighborhood....

New Jersey has the fifth highest number of AIDS cases in America, and yesterday became the last state to allow intravenous drug users to get clean needles, hoping it will slow the spread of the deadly virus. Gov. Jon Corzine ended a 13-year stalemate by signing a law to permit six communities to host needle exchange sites, where clean syringes and referrals to drug treatment will be available. The bill includes $10 million for drug treatment and counseling programs. "This is an historic day for public health," Corzine said, calling the law "a potential bridge to hope for addicts." After...

Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker's approach to addressing the needs of his community differs from that of his predecessors. How does Booker tackle the challenges facing his constituents? He experiences them for himself. Just three months ago, Booker became the first new mayor of Newark in two decades after the previous mayor, Sharpe James, dropped out of the mayoral race on March 27. Seventy-two percent of Newark voters favored Booker, reflecting the community's desire for change. And Booker is on the move. In 1998, he moved to Brick Towers, a public-housing project in Newark's Central Ward. Booker, who grew up...

Newark Mayor Cory Booker tossed off his jacket and gave chase when he saw a police officer with gun drawn chasing a robbery suspect on Thursday. The mayor's security detail tackled Altarig Rahman. Rahman was charged with aggravated assault and strong-armed robbery. Police said Rahman had robbed the mother of the city's fire director at a bank across from City Hall. The woman was depositing money for the Essex County courts parking lot, where she is a supervising attendant. Alex Garcia, a restaurant manager who was in the bank, was the first to pursue the suspect. The suspect managed to...

<p>With 10 days before the Newark mayoral election, a new WABC-TV Eyewitness News/SurveyUSA poll shows that Mayor Sharpe James and challenger Cory Booker are still even but the electorate is becoming more divided along racial lines.</p> <p>"We are seeing a polarization in the electorate. Whites and Hispanics are moving toward Booker. African-Americans are consolidating their support for James," said Jay Leve, editor of Verona-based SurveyUSA.</p>

<p>NEWARK, N.J.--More than 30 million passengers a year pass through the international airport here, but few spend any time in the gloomy city. But there are interesting political stirrings in Newark, whose mayor, 66-year-old Sharpe James, heads an old-fashioned political machine. In his bid for a fifth term, Mr. James faces a serious challenge from fellow Democrat Cory Booker, a reform-minded city councilman who has collected campaign contributions from figures as diverse as Bill Bradley and Jack Kemp.</p>