the third terminator

Bloomberg Offers Booker Help, Though He Doesn’t Really Need It

Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

Though weighing in on New York City’s mayoral race a week before the election didn’t work out so well for Mayor Bloomberg, he’s trying the same strategy in New Jersey. In an interview with the New York Times, Bloomberg praised Cory Booker’s work in Newark and called him a “solutions guy rather than an ideologue.” Bloomberg also compared the New Jersey Senate candidate to Rudy Giuliani, which may be less helpful than he thinks, but he’s making up for it by pouring some money into the race. On Monday, with ten days to go before the election, Bloomberg’s Independence USA super-PAC will start spending more than $1 million to air TV commercials that describe Booker as a “senator to get things done,” in a “divided Washington.”

It’s a tremendous amount of money to put into the race, particularly since Booker isn’t losing. While his campaign has been plagued by scandalous revelations that Booker gets manicures, exchanged tweets with a stripper, and isn’t friends with drug dealers, the latest poll had the Newark mayor up by thirteen points over Republican Steve Lonegan. That would be considered pretty damn good in most races, and the Times notes, “Nobody is predicting a Booker loss in the special election.” However, it still falls short of the astronomically high expectations for Newark’s so-called superhero mayor. “This should be a 20-point lead and not anything less than that,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

As long as we’re giving Booker things to discuss with a therapist, he should know that if he gets to D.C. and doesn’t immediately end the partisan gridlock, we’ll be very disappointed.

Bloomberg Helps Booker, But He Doesn’t Need It