Our political Quote of the Day comes from Democratic political maven Lanny Davis, who says Newark Mayor Corey Booker got it right the first time when he criticized Camp Obama’s use and accuracy of the Bain Capital issue against Romney — but that Republicans blew it when they used Booker’s remarks and the way they quickly and transparently jumped to use them for the Romney campaign:
It’s difficult to argue, even if you are a partisan Obama supporter, as I am, that this ad is not at least somewhat misleading.
You would think the Republicans and the Romney campaign would have been smart enough to follow the rule, “when the other side has made a mistake and is shooting at each other, be quiet and stay out of the way.”
But no — they just couldn’t resist. They took Booker’s “Meet” comments on Bain out of context, omitted his positive comments about President Obama and — voila! — the mayor and the rest of us who were critical of the Bain Capital ad were reminded why it is so important to unite to support President Obama and defeat Mitt Romney.
My own reaction when I saw the Republican National Committee website with a hypocritical petition calling for support of Mayor Booker was to remember the famous line addressed to the demagogic Sen. Joseph McCarthy: “Have you no shame?”
The best closing to this ugly episode in the 2012 presidential campaign was eloquently stated by Booker about the negative food fight that has already begun between the two campaigns:
“Enough is enough.”
Let’s get back to the issues.
My view: Democrats can win this thing on the facts. No need for misleading ads.
If you review the way it unfolded, Democrats were criticizing each other and it was also evolving into an underlying debate about whether its good for the party to discuss these differences or whether it was almost political malpractice. But then the GOP jumped in and Democrats realized there is a huge political price that could impact Obama and other Democrats down on the ticket. It seemed to underscore the phrase “giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” so some Dems began to close ranks.
I predict you won’t see more Corey Booker type moments in the Democratic Party this campaign season — particularly as polls keep emerging showing 2012 could be one of the closest elections ever.
This is not the 1960s when Democrats could count on Mayor Daley — or the Supreme Court.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.