Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a surrogate for President Obama’s re-election effort, sharply criticized President Obama’s recent attack ads criticizing Mitt Romney’s private Equity firm Bain Capital . During a roundtable discussion on “Meet The Press” Booker called the Obama ad released last week “nauseating”. The ad targeted Bain’s involvement with a steel company that eventually went bankrupt.
Booker said to the moderator,
“I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses and this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable.”
Booker did say that he believed that Obama’s policies benefited average Americans and small businesses.
While Booker went on to call the attacks on Bain “nauseating” he said that the Republican Party is no better with their attacks on Jeremiah Wright.
Booker said of the partisan attacks,
“This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on. It’s a distraction from the real issues.It’s either gonna be a small campaign about this crap, or it’s gonna be a big campaign in my opinion about the issues the American public cares about,”
Booker stood by his criticism of the Obama ad later on Twitter while still supporting Obama for the Presidency.
He wrote,
“I’ll always prioritize my nation over a political party. (And) right now crass divisive partisan politics is not serving the citizens of my city. So I’ll clarify my comments on (Meet the Press) Yes, Obama must be re-elected. But we as a nation owe it to him (and) ourselves (to) reject politics as usual.”
