Posted on 10/14/2013 2:16:42 PM PDT by JerseyanExile
Today’s U.S. Senate primary in New Jersey is – like so many elections these days – a representation of many of the most destructive trends that define modern politics. It is, for instance, a case of politics as a celebrity-driven coronation – one where one candidate’s media- and Twitter-driven celebrity (Cory Booker) is depicted as more important than other candidates’ far more impressive public policy experience. It is also a commentary on how such a celebrified politics tends to intensify when voters are paying the least attention. As the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s Adam Green notes, this most certainly is “a low-information, low-turnout primary in an expensive TV market being decided on star power” alone.
What’s perhaps most significant, though, is how this sleepy special election so perfectly captures the now-pervasive assumptions made about the fundamental notion of corruption. More specifically, it exemplifies the horrifying assumptions the political class makes when deciding what to deem disqualifyingly corrupt and what to deem business as usual – and, thus, politically savvy.
Booker’s career is the best example of the assumptions at work. He first jumped onto the political stage by helping turn his campaign against then-Newark Mayor Sharpe James into an acclaimed documentary about municipal corruption. In “Street Fight,” Booker is depicted as the earnest clean-government insurgent and James as the uber-corrupt machine politician. Ultimately, as the Huffington Post reports, James was indicted and imprisoned on charges that he used his office to enrich himself and to “steer city-owned land to his one-time mistress.” For that kind of old school graft, he was held up as the icon of corruption by, among others, the NYT, whose editorial board slammed him for “exhibiting a finger-in-the-eye arrogance” and then lamented “a sad career arc for Mr. James, who was originally elected as a reformer.”
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Another example of horrifyingly corrupt & getting a pass .... Terry McAuliffe running for governor in Virginia.
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