NEWARK — For a snapshot of what unites and divides people over Mayor Cory A. Booker, look no further than his list of campaign donors, where alongside the auto mechanics, attorneys and homemakers are names one normally wouldn't associate with New Jersey's largest city. There's Craig Newmark, founder of San Francisco-based Craigslist, and Hollywood producer Bryan Burk, whose credits...
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Newark Mayor Cory Booker during his State of the City address in February.
NEWARK — For a snapshot of what unites and divides people over Mayor Cory A. Booker, look no further than his list of campaign donors, where alongside the auto mechanics, attorneys and homemakers are names one normally wouldn't associate with New Jersey's largest city.
There's Craig Newmark, founder of San Francisco-based Craigslist, and Hollywood producer Bryan Burk, whose credits include the ABC series "Lost."
Oh, and there's a guy named Steven Spielberg, too. And a donor listed as a self-employed actress and musician named Barbra Streisand.
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His critics also cite it as evidence that he is too preoccupied with his national image and not mindful enough of residents' concerns in his own city.
"I simply ask people not to judge me on my friends, but to judge me on the results that we produce," Booker said last week. "I feel very grateful that Newark has gotten over $100 million in new philanthropy into our city that's building parks, putting cameras up and establishing scholarship funds during the worst economy since the Great Depression."
The consensus among political observers is that Booker's potential is boundless, and he has acknowledged being approached by the Obama campaign and by state Democrats seeking a candidate for the new lieutenant governor position. But the 41-year-old Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law School graduate has vowed to remain in Newark to transform a once-decaying, crime-plagued city into a blueprint for urban renewal.
"My hope is to create a national story, to let people know that, wherever American cities are going, in this century, in this decade, Newark is going to get there first," he said.
Booker said his proudest achievements have been a reduction in violent crime, an expansion of green space and city parks, a range of education initiatives and more than $100 million in new philanthropic investment in city programs.
If re-elected, he said he'll focus on continuing to attract money and jobs to Newark, and possibly trimming the size of government to weather what he called the city's worst financial crisis in decades. Last year, Booker imposed furloughs and pay cuts for about 2,000 city employees to close an estimated $85 million budget hole.
Critics point to the budget crisis as an indication that Booker doesn't have the skills or acumen to run a big city efficiently.
"People don't like what they see," said city council candidate John Sharpe James, son of longtime former Mayor Sharpe James. "They don't like furloughs, they don't like fewer services. This administration was supposed to bring Newark to the next level, but if they can't even balance their budget, what does that say?
"The key with Cory is his connections and his money, not his management ability," James added.
It is a measure of the city's divided loyalties that the most electric atmosphere produced by a politician may have occurred last month when Sharpe James returned after serving a federal prison sentence for corruption.
Hundreds of supporters turned out at a Greyhound bus station to see the former mayor. It was a reminder that James still casts a long shadow in Newark eight years after he beat Booker in a rancorous campaign.
Booker's chief opponent this time, former county prosecutor Clifford Minor, didn't respond to several phone and e-mail messages but said at James' homecoming rally that the former mayor's supporters remain loyal because he connected with regular folks. "He's not what we're accustomed to now," Minor said, referring to Booker.
According to election report filings, Minor's campaign has raised just over $300,000 compared to about $7.5 million for Booker's team.
Crime remains a central concern, and while Newark's murder rate has dropped since it hit a 10-year high in 2006, some residents say it's not enough.
"Things have changed. In some ways, it can't get no worse," said 74-year-old Asalea Thompson, a lifelong Newark resident who said she was leaning toward voting for Booker. "They talk about the crime in Newark so much, but I'm hoping it will improve, I'm telling you, because I'm right in the middle of it."
Ben Dworkin, director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics, said Newark mayor is one of New Jersey's most powerful positions. Booker's guest spots on shows like "The Colbert Report" and "Real Time With Bill Maher" and his well-publicized dispute with comedian Conan O'Brien have only heightened awareness.
"He (Booker) has received criticism for receiving this kind of publicity," Dworkin said. "But because he has found a way to get himself on these national outlets, people are interested to see if he can win his own local election. They're interested to watch his political career," Dworkin said.
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