Cory Booker.
About a year ago I read an article titled `40 Best and Brightest" in which Cory Booker, candidate for Mayor of Newark, was mentioned. I immediately became intrigued by this guy. A Yale Law graduate and Rhodes Scholar obsessed with becoming Mayor of one of America's most troubled cities. What also flared my interest in Booker was his no nonsense style. Example - He lived in the projects among his constituents despite the fact that he was fairly well off and could afford to live just about anywhere.
Anyway, I stumbled over this DVD, Street Fight, and decided to purchase it.
I'm really interested in this guy, so I'd appreciate hearing some of your opinions on his life and career (especially from NJ residents).
For those of you who are interested I've highlighted parts of his Wiki bio below-
Short Bio
Cory A. Booker (born April 27, 1969) is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. He is a Democratic politician and former Newark Councilman and community activist who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2002 against longtime incumbent Sharpe James. Booker ran again in 2006 and won a sweeping victory against Ronald Rice to become the 36th mayor of Newark. Booker is a graduate of Stanford, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School.
Councilman
In 1998, Booker won an upset victory, beating an unorganized four-term incumbent to get elected to the Newark City Council, a council known for its corruption and hard-fought elections.
Once on the Council, Booker proved to be an unconventional public official. In 1999, he went on a 10-day hunger strike, living in a tent in front of one of Newark's worst housing projects, to protest open-air drug dealing. For five months in 2000, he lived in a motor home, parking on street corners known to be places where drug trafficking occurred.
He proposed a variety of Council initiatives that impacted housing, young people, law and order, and the efficiency of City Hall, but was regularly rebuffed by a resistant City Council and often outvoted 8-1.
While on the Council, Booker became an advocate of school vouchers as part of a reform of the education system.
Booker lost his bid for Mayor in 2002, but ran again in 2006 and won.
Days before taking office in late June New Jersey investigators foiled a plot led by Bloods gang-leaders inside four New Jersey state prisons to assassinate Booker. The plot was led by New Jersey Bloods gang leader Lester Alford, an inmate in East Jersey State Prison in Rahway, New Jersey.
Booker assumed office as mayor of Newark on July 1, 2006, just the third person to govern the city since 1970. After a week, Booker announced a 100-day plan to implement reforms in Newark. The centerpiece is adding police officers; other changes include ending background checks for many city jobs, an effort to help former offenders find employment in the city; refurbishing police stations; improving city services; and expanding summer youth programs. Booker campaigned for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut on August 6, 2006, two days before the Democratic primary pitting Lieberman against challenger Ned Lamont. On August 21, 2006 Booker formally introduced his purposed Newark City Budget before the Municipal Council for approval. Booker's $697.1 million budget calls for an 8.3% increase in the city's property tax, which if passed would be one of the largest property tax increases in the city's history. The budget would also increase the number of city employees from 3,968 to 4,197. As mayor Booker appointed Garry McCarthy, a former police commander of Manhattan's 33rd Precinct in the late 1990s, as the director of the Newark Police Department. McCarthy was credited with sharply reducing crime in the precinct but was also criticized by some for methods including setting up police barricades around neighborhoods in order to monitor the drug trade.