The idea behind Waywire is interesting, but I can’t help but believe that Cory Booker is a made man in the Silicon Valley Cosa Nostra. There are worse groups, especially for a North Jersey politican (see HBO’s The Sopranos), but I don’t like the way they made Booker a potential millionaire without even expecting him to do any actual work.
I also don’t like how Booker has been caricatured by so many on the left as some kind of Wall Street sell out. It’s much more complicated than that. If he’s been captured, in some real sense, he also has real ideas about how to utilize the power he’s gained to help the poor and the marginalized. I don’t think he’s lying when he argues that social media is an important democratizing force.
He has over 1.4 million Twitter followers and has made over 30,000 tweets. That’s real commitment. I think I am too old to know what it means.
That’s a lot of tweets. How does he have time to eat, take a leak, and do 30,000 tweets?
Yeah, I’m guilty – I always thought he was too connected to Wall Street.
Which isn’t to say that he really is ALL that connected – that’s what I’ve been led to believe by what I’ve read about him.
And that doesn’t necessarily mean a horrible thing, since yeah, it’s pretty obvious that he’s pretty in tune with the people he represents.
Even if he is a bit too much of a show-pony for my tastes.
I’ll take him over any and every Republican.
He’s a very nice guy, gives you the sense that he’s genuinely interested in what you are saying to him and actually follows through via social media or direct messaging. He’s sincere and knows that growth and innovation are the best way to provide opportunity. More business = more jobs. This approach is the only option available in New Jersey at the moment anyhow, as the state systematically dismantles the institutions that used to provide for a solid middle class: public education and highly redundant government (aka Home Rule). I’m not so sure that institutionalizing the damage done to the working man in New Jersey is a good idea, but it’s happening and we might as well try to promote business in order to find jobs for the effected.
Marc Tracy takes a dim view.
In that article there is a link to one about Ashton Kutcher using Twitter to raise money for malaria relief in the style of the Jerry Lewis telethons. The MSM is failing to give us the truth. Twitter allows people to correct misinformation about them and connect directly.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/04/what-ashton-kutcher-can-teach-us-about-the-evolution-of-media/
When Wendy Davis was filibustering in TX Senate no networks were covering it, but it went wild on Twitter. She is known and people were connected in a very powerful way that is still growing via Twitter.
President Obama obviously recognizes the power of social media and uses it well. Cory does too. He seems to be a principled man who does care for his constituents. I like that he is engaging the Silicon Valley in his causes.
I recognize the very legitimate question you are raising, but it seems like a nice version of the far left calling President Obama a tool of corporations.
You bring up a very interesting point and I think it’s what we really need to be discussing. How do we get reality based about the power that corporations and the very wealthy have instead of calling anyone who engages them a tool. Is it even possible to have a Teddy Roosevelt trust buster? How would it work?
A president or a mayor cannot ignore the rich and powerful, they have to engage them in their causes. For example, with his work to have companies commit to hiring veterans.
Ok, so maybe I ignored your main point, that he owns part of that company. He comes across to me as a powerful person who is going places. I feel uncomfortable with him owning the company if he will benefit as a Senator. Is that illegal? Do Republicans do that as a matter of course? I don’t know and I didn’t get enough sleep last night so you’ve already gotten all the concentration I can muster. Great topic though. I enjoyed it.
It also allows people to disseminate mis-information too fast to stop. Like when they named that vanished Indian college student when looking for Tsarnaev.
1.4 million young people and he is not JZ…amazing. A politician with a positive message engaging the future of the democratic party with 21st century tools. We need more Dems ready to embrace the 21st century. I think one of the Castro brothers in TX needs to consult with Cory and ensure we turn TX blue.
Harold Ford Jr, Jr.
OK…LOL
I think it’s good that he’s close to finance and tech. This is not the old racist and populist New Deal party. This is the new party of social liberalism and neoliberalism. There is a reason, those changes are linked. We aren’t going back to populism and racism.
Dear Editor,
As a lifelong member of the racist Democrat Party of FDR…
I sincerely hope nobody is fooled by this person.
Why should we bother supporting government services if we’re going a public-private partnership? Why not just speed up the process, privatize everything, and then rely on charity? Seems to be what Booker is arguing for. If that’s where you want to take the party and the country, you and Booker can go have fun with that. Count me out of your pity charity liberalism.
When there is no money available (like in NJ under Gov. Christ-o-mighty), public-private partnerships are your only recourse to make big changes. It pains me to see the institutions that made NJ great fall apart and new, nasty ones rising in their place, but that’s a bipartisan affront that the Mayor little nothing to do with. He just succeeded despite it. Getting stuff done for his city before and during a financial crisis and the bipartisan self-destruction is why he’s even got this chance.
In the past, being Mayor of a NE NJ city was an albatross that prevented higher office (you are corrupt or a gangster or a vulture or all of the above). That he’s even in the race is an achievement.
I think it’s telling that Boo jumped on the Booker bandwagon. Don’t forget that he loved him some Michelle Rhee. Booker is going to be another Ben Nelson/Holy Joe. Actually more HolyJoe because if he wins, he’ll be the Democratic version of Cranky McSame re: the Sunday shows. And if you actually find out his position on important issues, they are awful. Don’t let his walk-back of his Social Security comments fool you.
I do not remember his love for Rhee. Maybe he was fooled, I was younger during we tenure, but when I was looking into going into teaching (coincidentally inspired by Obama and boredom with engineering work) I looked into TFA. Thought it was cool, thought of applying, but then dug a bit deeper and found the rot. Fuck Rhee and we bandit thieves. When are they going to go send their Harvard white kids into suburbia to help those schools if the model is so great?
Don’t forget that he loved him some Michelle Rhee.
When was this?
He believes in the same school privatization scheme as she does. That’s what I meant. Whether he’s actually mentioned Rhee by name? I don’t know.
In a state that produced Chris Christie as Governor, Booker is perfect.
And until there is money to be had in being lobbyists for the working stiffs of this country, flirting with Wall Street and Corporate America is the best we can have. Our elected representatives are by definition, OUR lobbyists, but they seemed to have forgotten that fact.
After all, Citizens United mentions UNIONS along side CORPORATIONS in the invitation to corrupt the electoral process. I don’t see unions taking advantage of their opportunities like corporate america has, and even though the money isn’t on the side of unions, they are hardly broke. Where are the union funded think tanks? Where is the union version of ALEC?
If people like Booker don’t play the game, they don’t play.
What it means is that a social media communications staff tweets in his name on his account.
I’m sure this is true, but I’ve been on the receiving end of some obviously personally produced communication and I am no one to him other than a resident of NJ
So they’re damn good. Are they using NSA info? š
What it means is that there are bunches of Twitter aggregators and likely GOP operatives as well following him. Along with folks who think he’s the next Barack Obama.
I’m not being quick to make up my mind about Booker. Since I’m not in New Jersey, I have the luxury. I’m curious to see how he behaves himself over time.
Hey, that’s not how we do things around here. All we need to know is that Cory Booker might possibly be willing to contemplate certain unspecified changes in Social Security. That means he’s irredeemably depraved.
Have you actually looked into his record, and who else he surrounds himself with? We rightly give Bill & Hillary crap for Lanny Davis, Bob Rubin and Mark Penn among others. Why not give Booker crap about his awful associations?
No, I don’t know much about him and I don’t claim to. As someone who tries to keep an open mind, though, I have to say that the condemnations in this thread have done nothing to increase my knowledge–all I’ve learned is that Cory Booker is awful, supports awful policies, and hangs out with awful people. How about some details?
Granted, I can always look up the details myself, but then I’m just more confused. As far as his awful policies, for instance, I looked at the “Vision” page of his site, and I didn’t see anything all that objectionable there. He could be lying, of course, but if that really is his vision then a lot of the comments here are a bit hyperbolic.
I’m not even here to defend the guy, actually–like I said, I really just don’t know enough, and there is definitely something unsettling about this Waywire deal. What I’m really interested in is understanding him, and my complaint is that I don’t find all this vitriol terribly useful in that regard.
I just happened to see these details this morning. NOthing new, but thought you might find it interesting: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/08/booker-and-big-money-geeks.html
You know, I don’t consider it corruption, although I would if Booker continued that way as a senator. But the mayor of Newark doesn’t set internet or communications policy. It’s unsavory, to be sure, but it is also transparent and legal, and it comes in least in part from a genuine mutual admiration that inspires reciprocal boosterism.
Booker is a new-fangled Negro.
and no, that is NOT a compliment.
What the ** do you mean by that?
– New fangled Cracker
There’s not much daylight between Booker and Obama on policy or Negro-ness.
Not sure i really agree. And even if I did it’s not much of an argument when the seat is almost guaranteed to go to a Democrat.
Right but the argument that Booker is going to be something of a Nelson/Lieberman clone is absurd.
Yeah I don’t agree there at all. Probably be like a chuck Shumer. I think someone as liberal as him could win VA and I would be psyched. The reverse is true for NJ tho heh.
Schumer is a newfangled Jew. And that’s not a compliment, either.
Though, yeah, you’ve got it exactly right. In VA, he’d be a godsend. Hell, in Maine he’d be a godsend.