How damaging was the Cory Booker fiasco?

[Ned_Devine]

It sounds pretty bad. Almost like he did it on purpose

[TheWraith]

1. Not. It'll be forgotten by the end of the week. nt

[sadbear]

4. It's going to be in every Romney commercial between now and November

[Cali_Democrat]

10. And then folks will wonder....

Who the hell is Cory Booker? LOL.

[malaise]

19. That's the only good part

Only we political animals know him

[TheWraith]

17. No, it won't.

Booker is functionally a nobody on the national stage. 90+ percent of the public has never heard of him, and certainly won't this year. If Romney tried to run ads on this, it would be considered a bad joke, trying to exploit a comment from somebody that most voters don't know from the man in the moon. And the people who DO know who Booker is are people inside Democratic politics who aren't going to be swayed away from Obama.

[FLyellowdog]

2. To whom?

[Ned_Devine]

9. To Obama...I'm sorry.

I thought that was implied. They are going to use this on Romney's commercials from here on in

[enough]

3. Damaging to whom? President Obama has already demonstrated that he's not going to be riled by it.

It's Booker who will be harmed. But he'll still have a nice career as a Blue Dog, or even a Republican, eventually.

No question he did it on purpose.

[ingac70]

5. Damaging enough to end any chances....

of Booker getting anywhere nationally in the future... that is it.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what Cory Booker says IMO

He can backtrack, he can stand by his comments. Whatever. It doesn't matter in the long run. What's going on now is just typical cable news 24/7 infotainment where folks following the campaign closely think this is the biggest news on earth right now when it really isn't. This is similar to the Hilary Rosen thing. What so-called "surrogates" say really means nothing. It's all about what the candidates themselves say.

What really matters is how Obama will define Romney and that die has already been cast. Obama will attack Romney on Bain which is an excellent strategy IMO. Why? Because Romney is trying to claim he know about creating jobs because of the time he spent there. The problem is that he was actually a job destroyer, not a job creator. Jim Cramer has even acknowledged this.

This is an effective attack and that's why Romney reacted to it the way he did. Obama also appears to be climbing in the polls the last few days.

The media can claim that Cory Booker has ruined Obama's strategy, but that's total bullshit.

[TheWraith]

18. Exactly. It's a flashy story for one news cycle.

It'll give the talking heads something to chatter about for the day. They might even bring it up again tomorrow. Beyond that, nobody else is going to give two craps.

[Politicalboi]

7. Not as bad as

Etch A Sketch, but it was stupid of him to say it.

[CTyankee]

8. It's pretty bad. Now the repukes have a TV ad out of it. And they'll play it from here

to kingdom come.

But it is early in the campaign so Obama can recover. I think he should just keep up the attadk. AFter all, not everybody watches Meet the Press.

This will settle down pretty soon....

[bluestate10]

11. Frank Lautenberg did well in neutralizing Booker tonight.

Obama should tell Booker to STFU and put Lautenberg out front. Lautenberg has a bigtime business background, starting a compay that now employs over 50,000 people. Obama should kick Booker's ass to the curb and put Lautenberg into the fight against Romney. The voices of the workers that Romney screwed should continue to be heard. Fuck Booker, his career as a democrat is finished.

[Dawson Leery]

24. Exactly.

Booker and his cronies at Bain know nothing but to fleece other peoples money.

[FLyellowdog]

12. But doesn't Bain's campaign contributions to Booker trump any meaningful harm?

It sort of explains his position...plus validates what some of his colleagues are saying about Booker being a big money hunter.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/05/21/488002/bain-financial-industy-gave-over-565000-to-newark-mayor-cory-booker-for-2002-campaign/

[ProgressiveEconomist]

22. This post deserves its own thread

I took the liberty to credit you and repost at http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002713570

[vanlassie]

13. He was a tool all along- just showed it now.

[Raine]

14. It was a setback for the Obama campaign

just have to see how it plays out.

[Ned_Devine]

16. my thoughts as well

The Obama campaign shouldn't be doing any defense right now...especially against their "surrogates"

[Bluenorthwest]

15. He's the mayor of a town next to a city.....

no one puts trust in Booker. Most people don't know who he is.

[enough]

20. Right. This whole thing is the embodiment of the "OH they're going to be mad at us" phenomenon.

Why oh why do so many Democrats continues to act as if the worst thing that can happen is that some Republican will say something bad about us?

That's why I liked Obama's reaction today. He was business as usual, handling this question in the middle of a completely different event (the G8). He simply explained why Booker's notion is wrong, said nothing bad about Booker, then used the occasion to explain his point of view very clearly. This thing is going to fade like spring rain. Cory Booker?

[enough]

21. Cory Booker just threw himself under the bus. (nt)

[NNN0LHI]

23. The GOP would have much rather had the media talking about this guy for another week or two

But it didn't work out that way.

Don