The New York Times is always selling its favorite Democrats, like this gooey introduction from Kate Zernike on Thursday’s front page: “Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark easily won New Jersey’s special Senate election on Wednesday, finally rising to an office that measures up to his national profile.“
Who is it, precisely, who has built this expansive national profile? The politician, surely, but he’s had a lot of help from the national profile-builders of the major media. Zernike’s already measuring him for vice-president in 2016:
New Jersey
By Tim Graham | October 17, 2013 | 11:00 PM EDT
By Matthew Sheffield | October 16, 2013 | 5:27 PM EDT
Electoral politics is frequently more a contest of biographies than it is of the issues, particularly if there is no incumbent involved. Of course, having an inspiring biography is only worth as much as the media allow it to be.
Not only is Republican Senate candidate Steve Lonegan at a disadvantage in this regard—the press very rarely tells of his inspiring story of overcoming blindness and a modest economic background—he is also harmed by the fact that the Democrat he is running against in the special election that’s being held today, Cory Booker, has a long record of fabricating his own biographical details.
By Tim Graham | August 28, 2013 | 11:37 AM EDT
The national media’s love affair with New Jersey’s Cory Booker continued in The Washington Post on Tuesday. On the front of the Style section was the headline “A perfect senator for ‘This Town’? Newark’s Cory Booker isn’t lacking in ideas, energy or self-promotion.””
Who needs self-promotion when you’ve got national media valentine-writers? This Jason Horowitz profile continued on the back page of Style with the headline “Booker seems to be a man made for D.C.” It was illustrated by pictures with captions that called Booker “POPULAR” and “CAGEY.” The Post can’t wait for Booker to thump the Tea Party opponent for the Democrats:
By Andrew Lautz | August 14, 2013 | 3:44 PM EDT
The New York Times’s Raymond Hernandez delivered New Jersey primary election results with a spin Tuesday night, offering a mushy profile of Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the state’s landslide winner in the Democratic primary for United States Senate. The report’s lead lauded Booker as a “charismatic and media-savvy star in the Democratic Party,” noting the mayor’s efforts to “remake a notoriously troubled city.”
Hernandez celebrated Booker as a nonpartisan figure arguing for a “pragmatic brand of politics, favoring practical solutions over ideology.” And what about Booker’s Republican opponent, former Bogota Mayor Steven Lonegan? Well, Lonegan merited a mere paragraph in the Times’s New Jersey election coverage [picture after the jump, courtesy of Chang W. Lee, New York Times]:
By Kevin Mooney | August 13, 2013 | 2:16 PM EDT
Planet earth has been getting cooler, not warmer in the past few years. That’s an objective fact that PolitFact New Jersey omitted in its duplicitous July 22nd “Truth-O-Meter” article giving cover to Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-N.J.) alarmist statements on global warming. Holt is challenging Newark City Mayor Corey Booker in today’s N.J. Democratic primary. In a campaign ad, Holt claimed “millions will die” from rising temperatures.
“Every single month since 1985 has been warmer than the historic average," Holt said. "All 12 of the warmest years on record have come in the last 15 years.”
By Matthew Sheffield | June 7, 2013 | 4:24 PM EDT
During the Wednesday edition of his show Hardball, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who once called former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin “profoundly stupid,” appeared not to know that there are two current U.S. senators who are of African descent.
“We don’t have any African Americans in the United States Senate, which I think is a disgrace,” Matthews said before being corrected by a producer and one of his guests. Before his mistake was fixed, Matthews also disclosed that he, as a resident of Maryland, voted for Republican Michael Steele when he ran for Senate in 2006 because he was black.
New Jersey Dems Caught on Hot Mic Wanting to 'Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate ... Their Little Guns'
By Tom Blumer | May 11, 2013 | 8:12 AM EDT How many times have we heard establishment press members, particularly broadcasters, insist that no one on the left side of the gun control discussion wants to take away anyone's guns? Just a few examples include CNN's Piers Morgan, CNN's Carol Costello, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner, even after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was quoted in the New York Times before Christmas saying that "confiscation could be an option." Currently, New York, as Hot Air's Jazz Shaw noted in late April, actually is confiscating guns, based on "the exercise of reasonable professional judgment" of "mental health professionals."
Though I'm sure they'll try, the deniers are going to have a hard time explaining away what the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs has reported with accompanying audio. After the conclusion of a hearing of New Jersey's Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, an open mic captured the following discussion among three Democratic senators (HT PolitiChicks via Instapundit; internal link and bolds are in original):
By Cal Thomas | March 5, 2013 | 2:32 PM EST
It's a safe bet that most conservative Republicans would rush to support a political leader with the following record, especially in a traditionally Democratic state:
-- Reversed a $2.2 billion deficit and brought it into balance without raising taxes, largely by reduced spending and eliminating wasteful and unaffordable programs, allowing for a projected fiscal 2014 budget surplus of $300 million.
In 2011, Lautenberg Said Pro-Life Protesters 'Don’t Deserve the Freedoms in the Constitution - But We'll Give It to Them Anyway'
By Tom Blumer | February 14, 2013 | 10:47 PM EST New Jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg, 89, announced today that he will retire in two years at the end of his term. President Obama predictably praised him as a "steadfast champion of the people of New Jersey."
Well, not all of the people of New Jersey. In March 2011, Lautenberg spoke at a pro-Planned Parenthood rally in Englewood. In a statement the establishment press steadfastly ignored, Lautenberg, responding to vocal pro-life protesters, said the following (video still present at LifeNews.com; bolds are mine throughout this post):
By Ryan Robertson | November 27, 2012 | 7:09 PM EST
It was almost a month ago that the New York and New Jersey coastlines were mercilessly pummeled by Hurricane Sandy. Immediately following the storm, the liberal media spin went into overdrive commending the leadership and compassion Obama displayed in the aftermath. But reports have been surfacing since the election, revealing how conditions in the afflicted regions are still not much improved and the majority of the broadcast media's acknowledgement of their prolonged trials and tribulations has been minimal at best.
For their part however, Fox & Friends welcomed Donna Vanzant on Tuesday morning's program. She just so happened to be the woman President Obama was photographed consoling during his official visit to survey the damage in New Jersey. To say the least, she has not been pleased with FEMA's fickle response. [ video below the page break ]
By Ryan Robertson | October 31, 2012 | 11:53 PM EDT
Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, leaving nothing but devastation behind in its wake and with just days until the election. So it's not that surprising that MSNBC is spinning New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's gratitude to the president for, well, doing his job as some sort of campaign gold for Team Obama.
Take Tuesday night's edition of The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, as guest contributors Joy-Ann Reid of The Grio and Steve Kornacki of MSNBC's The Cycle were brought on to comment on the compilation footage of a weary Christie, speaking warmly of the president. Without hesitation, they scoffed at the idea Gov. Romney could win the election now; politicizing a tragedy in the process.
Giving Obama the Edge After Hurricane, John Dickerson of CBS News Reflects on How Great Big Government Is
By Ryan Robertson | October 31, 2012 | 10:29 AM EDT In an appearance on CBS This Morning on Tuesday, the network's political director John Dickerson stopped by to briefly discuss the impact Hurricane Sandy could have on the upcoming election.
The segment was primarily focused on how the candidates will try to sensitively make up for lost time on the campaign trail, but there was an underlying question. Who stands to gain the advantage as a result?