Has Cory Booker hurt his own political career? (+video)

Has Cory Booker hurt his own political career? That’s a valid question in the wake of his misstep last Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Mr. Booker – the Democratic mayor Newark, N.J. – called President Obama’s anti-Bain Capital campaign ads “nauseating." He and the Obama campaign have been in full damage-control mode ever since.

Well, one thing’s for sure – a prime time Booker speech at the Democratic National Convention is now pretty unlikely. That would only cause the “Meet the Press” clip to run in rotation on cable news again. So the Newark mayor, often described as a rising star, won’t get the exposure that then-little known Barack Obama did when he delivered the DNC keynote address in 2004.

Plus, his own ties to Wall Street have now become press fodder. On Monday, the liberal website Think Progress revealed that Bain officials and others in the finance industry contributed more than $565,000 to Booker’s first mayoral campaign in 2002. Stories about links between financial groups and Booker, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, and other Democrats who criticized the Bain ads came out so fast that some on the right suspect they were planted by the Obama camp.

“I expected them to send out oppo research on Republicans.... But I don’t think I ever would’ve predicted they’d be digging up dirt on their own campaign surrogates,” wrote Ben Howe on the conservative RedState blog.

Booker’s in-state party rivals have even begun tweaking him over his misstep. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) of New Jersey, for instance, holds a seat that Booker is rumored to want for himself. On Tuesday, Senator Lautenberg said Booker’s words were “a terrible blow, in my view, for President Obama."

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