Cory Booker Back in Favor with Rousing DNC Speech
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Scott Eells/Bloomberg via Getty Images(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — Newark Mayor Cory Booker, once sickened by Obama campaign tactics, settled his stomach and delivered a rousing address in support of the president’s re-election bid during the Democratic National Convention.
“You should be able to afford health care for your families. You should be able to retire with dignity and respect. And you should be able to give your children the kind of education that allows them to dream even bigger, go even further and accomplish more than you could have imagined,” Booker blared during the convention’s 6 p.m. hour Tuesday night, a time with few viewers. “This is our platform. This is our platform! This is our platform!”
It marked a stirring return to the campaign’s good graces for Booker, who on May 20 told NBC’s Meet the Press he found the Obama camp’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital “nauseating.”
“Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity,” Booker said. “Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright.”
The Wright remark especially upset the Obama team, which felt Booker had implied an equivalence between Republican attacks on the president’s ties to his controversial former pastor and the campaign’s most damaging hit on Romney.
The popular Newark, N.J., mayor released a Web video later in the day, seeking to back off his strong language.
“I used the word ‘nauseating’ on Meet the Press because that’s really how I feel when I see people in my city struggling with real issues and still feeling the challenges of this economy,” Booker said, in what he’d later described as looking like a “hostage video.”
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