Surprising, I know. I don't agree with what he said, but I think you should pay attention to what Booker actually said. I just don't think he deserves to be crucified for going off message for a paragraph, especially when the president doesn't actually disagree.
He said he was "Nauseated" by negative campaigning. Keep in mind, the negative campaigning mostly involves screaming "Socialist" at Obama, no surprise there. He takes shots at our side for our participation in negative campaigning, which is the only way to not be a disingenuous jerk about the subject.
Finally, he pointed out that the biggest problem we face is superpacs and the legal corruption of our political system by monied interests.
He went off message for about 30 seconds, made a comment which implied that private equity wasn't always evil, and this comment has been blown completely out of context.
He was talking about election strategy, and his thoughts on the way that campaigns work. And he, personally, doesn't agree with me when I say that Bain Capital is the devil. Fundamentally, Booker and I have different philosophies on a lot of subjects.
But that's really okay.
I don't need every Democrat to agree with me on every issue. I really don't. Now I'm going to be really loud about some of the places where we disagree, and I disagree with what Booker said in the strongest terms. I do think that Private Equity firms are usually evil. I do think that we should keep attacking them. I think we should point out the the American people how bad these corporations are.
But I understand Booker's ultimate point. He's disgusted with negative politics.
In a post Karl Rove world, I'm not sure that we're ever going to get away from negative campaigning barring nationwide institution of critical thinking education.
Now people are prophesying the end of Cory Booker's political career. I don't think that's accurate, and I don't think that's fair, and when a democrat slides off message and says something we disagree with, it shouldn't mean automatic and instant crucifixion.
To look at the reaction from the left, I thought that Cory Booker had murdered a puppy on national television.
Then I read his comments, and watched him on Maddow.
When republicans are off message, people laugh. When republicans talk about Willard like he's a turd they happened to step in and are stuck with until they can find a garden hose, the press doesn't respond.
When a democrat goes off message just once, it's feeding day at the shark pool.
And I wasn't any better myself. After reading the diaries and hearing the sound bytes from Booker's statements, my reaction was to be disappointed, and to feel betrayed.
I was played by the media attack machine. I allowed a non-story, a democrat makes a gaffe, to poison my view of a powerful voice in progressive politics.
We can't let this kind of thing continue to happen, and I know why it's happening.
We're angry. That's why I recently took a break from posting here or reading here for a few weeks.
We're mad. We're so incensed by the attacks on women, on workers, on the poor, and on the middle class that we're on the warpath. And we're not going to stop until we've retaken the house and senate and ensured enough years of Democratic government to clean up this damned mess, and if that doesn't happen in 2012, we'll make it happen in 2014 (but let's make it happen in 2012, please.)
And that anger, that drive, that passion caused us to attack one of our own.
We dug into Booker's political career and found every single little point where we disagreed with him. And there are more than a few. Booker has apparently maintained some ties to Wall Street and various corporations. And that's not surprising. If I was the mayor of Newark, NJ, I would be making as many friends in the business community as I could to get them to invest locally and help build some businesses that could help me combat urban blight. That means getting close to some terrible people, but if he can squeeze a few hundred jobs out of Wall St, then it's worth it to the people of Newark.
Yet we ignore this. We don't think there could be any reason why a Mayor who runs a city with 16% unemployment might want to encourage businesses to come to his city. So we attacked him, and we attacked him, and we continued to attack him.
Even when President Obama made a statement agreeing with Booker. Even when Booker explained his remarks. We STILL thought he was a jerk because he went off message for a whole paragraph.
That's not acceptable. We need to be better, myself included.
During an election year as contentious as this one, it's important to make sure we know who were fighting and what we're fighting for. We're fighting for civil liberties, and we're fighting for social and economic justice. I'm not sure where Booker stands when it comes to my views of social justice, but when it comes to civil rights, and when it comes to fighting Willard's insane economic policies, I know that Booker is one of the good guys.
The disagreements we have with Booker on some economic and social justice issues are minutiae in comparison with the massive gulf of opinion between Romney and the Progressive Movement.
So I stand with Cory Booker. I stand with him to ensure four more years under Barack Obama's leadership. I stand with Cory Booker when he opposes discrimination against women and gays. I stand with Cory Booker when he opposes Mitt Romney's attempts to take our country in the wrong direction. I stand with Cory Booker when he attacks the super-pacs that are doing everything they can to stop the progressive movement. I stand with Cory Booker when he demands a political system that debates real issues instead of rehashing the soundbites and talking points of the super-pac defined rhetoric.
And I hope that you will, too.
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Maddow's coverage of Booker, and his interview. Watch it if you haven't.
6:57 AM PT: Huge reaction here, and there's a general feeling I need to respond to made in a lot of comments.
People are saying things here that simply aren't true. I don't agree with all of Booker's stances, I think I made that pretty clear.
But on the social issues we care about Booker agrees with and has been consistently fighting for the opinions of this community. He agrees with us more often than he doesn't.
Now this diary has been torn to shreds. There have been stylistic attacks. There have been arguments that ignore my main premise.
So I return to my main point. If Booker is just a yes man for the banks, then so is Nancy Pelosi, and so are plenty of other excellent democrats.
Booker misspoke once. Once. He made some bad calls in an interview. Every single one of us, and most politicians, will make a faulty argument at some point. I've done it. You've done it. There are several in this diary. Many of them are indelible comments here at DKos.
My point is that we can't let our anger at Wall Street trick us into attacking our fellow democrats for something as tiny as this.
Politically, this is the smallest of potatoes. To focus all of your rage on a minor issue like this, when it's been stirred up by the beltway press, is to lose sight of the important work we've got to do at this stage of the campaign.
Stop it. Take a walk. Relax. And think.
Who benefits from attacking Cory Booker?
Is it the Democratic party? What the hell do we gain at this point?
President Obama surely doesn't gain by getting into a fight with the mayor of Newark.
The only people who can gain anything from this fight are Republicans.
That's it. Those are the only people who can gain anything at all from this debate.
Stop helping them, Kossacks. You focus on better Democrats during primaries. You focus on more Democrats now.
We need to stop this internecine bickering and get back to attacking Republicans.