By David Cruz
NJ Today
Mayor Cory Booker’s supporters say he’s in a damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t dilemma. He’s running for U.S. Senate but he’s still also mayor of the state’s largest city, a job which many of his critics say he’s been neglecting since before he launched his Senate bid. One of his opponents, Rush Holt, has even made the mayor’s media presence part of the focus of his own campaign.
“I don’t have a million Twitter followers, I’ve never run into a burning building and I’m not friends with Mark Zuckerberg,” Holt says in a campaign ad.
But at several events today, Booker was wearing his mayor’s hat, promoting the arrival of a Newark-centered version of the micro-lender Kiva.org, which provides micro loans to entrepreneurs who can’t qualify for regular bank or Small Business Administration loans.
“This is actually a remarkably amazing day for our city and I wish people understood the implications for what can happen going forward,” Booker said.
Booker stopped to chat with some of the previous micro-loan recipients — there are so far only three in Newark — and made a purchase before hopping into his mayoral SUV to his next event: the dedication of a mobile emergency command unit in the south ward.
When asked if there a sense that he may have to leave office soon and that he has to get a lot done before you leave, Booker said, “No. Next question.”
But not everyone was buying Booker’s answer. Councilwoman Mildred Crump was on hand at the south ward event, casting a critical eye on the man she calls an absentee mayor.
“This hastiness with which he is rapidly having these events speak to I’m sure the concern of his campaign committee, who are telling him, ‘You need to be at home sometime,'” Crump said.
Congressman Donald Payne Jr. oversees the Homeland Security dollars that made the emergency command unit possible. He and Booker were friendly today, which some observers will no doubt read into, since Payne’s name has now emerged as a potential successor to Booker, a door which the congressman left very much open today.
When asked if he would be ready to take on the leadership position of mayor, Payne said, “Well, some people have been talking to me and I’ve been listening but I haven’t made any decision. My work in Congress has kept me very busy.”
Booker says today’s busy schedule is nothing more than the mayor being the mayor, and that if his critics want to make something of it, he says that’s on them.