{"id":13222,"date":"2013-10-12T17:55:51","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T00:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=13222"},"modified":"2013-10-12T17:56:33","modified_gmt":"2013-10-13T00:56:33","slug":"amusement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2013\/10\/12\/amusement\/","title":{"rendered":"amusement. jersey."},"content":{"rendered":"

So I suppose the question of the day. \u00c2\u00a0For the next 15 minutes of flimsy political oriented diversion. \u00c2\u00a0 Is it a scandal if a politician sends text messages to a stripper… and there’s nothing particularly sexual in the comments? \u00c2\u00a0Oh, who knows<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\n

In a profanity-filled assessment of the race delivered via phone Thursday, Rick Shaftan, a senior staffer and key strategist on Lonegan’s campaign, suggested voters would be turned off by Booker’s “odd” behavior including Twitter messages the Democrat sent to a stripper, that Shaftan described as “strange” and “like what a gay guy would say.”<\/em>
\n“It was just weird. I mean, to me, you know, hey, if he said, ‘Hey, you got really hot breasts man, I’d love to suck on them.’ Then like, yeah, cool. But like, he didn’t say that,” Shaftan explained. “It was like kind of like, I don’t know, it was like what a gay guy would say to a stripper. It’s the way he was talking to her. It’s just like like there was no sexual interest at all. I don’t know. To me, if I was single and you know like some stripper was tweeting me, I might take advantage of the perks of the office, you know?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Hm.<\/p>\n

At a press conference, Booker said his communications with Lee were simply proof he spends substantial time on Twitter “listening to people and engaging with people no matter what their profession.”<\/em>
\nHowever, in the interview with TPM, Shaftan said it was impossible Booker did not take notice of the topless pictures Lee regularly shared on her Twitter page.<\/em>
\n“This is strange. It’s just weird. … It’s like, ‘I don’t know who she is. I don’t know anything about her.’ Get the fuck out of here dude. You can’t follow her Twitter page and not know she’s got those great breasts. How do you fucking not know?” Shaftan said. “It’s just too odd and people they just wonder, like, who does this guy really want to work for? Who’s he representing?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Again with the goddamned breasts. \u00c2\u00a0You know, frankly I don’t believe Shaftan. \u00c2\u00a0You know what the political fallout would be if Booker had tweeted … er… what he suggested he should have? \u00c2\u00a0I think the New Jersey Democrats would be obliged to try to pull a Frank Lautenberg on him. \u00c2\u00a0Not only that, but Shaftan would not be backing him up on this one.
\nMaybe Cory Booker’s just trying for that sweet spot of ambiguity about his sexuality. \u00c2\u00a0He sees it’s working for him politically. \u00c2\u00a0The perfect way to do this is by sending perfectly asexual tweets to a stripper. \u00c2\u00a0At the very least it’s making his opponent nuts.<\/p>\n

Shaftan didn’t stop by mocking Booker for consorting with a stripper on social media. He also said Booker’s\u00c2\u00a0Hollywood fundraisers,\u00c2\u00a0predilection for pedicures, and comments Booker made that he is\u00c2\u00a0unconcerned about speculation surrounding his sexuality\u00c2\u00a0gave Lonegan ample fodder.<\/i><\/p>\n

In other aspects of this debate… the comments that is getting a lot of play from the big debate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

In one notably feisty exchange, Booker, the mayor of Newark, said Lonegan, a conservative activist and former Bogota mayor, would want to gut environmental regulations, using the polluted Passaic River as an example of the need for them.<\/em>
\n“You may not be able to swim in that river, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably, I think, because of all the bodies floating around of shooting victims in your city,” Lonegan shot back.<\/em>
\n“Oh my God,” Booker said.<\/em><\/p>\n

Oooo…. Burn? \u00c2\u00a0I guess.<\/p>\n

Something I’ve been watching a bit closer of late (have had this blog’s rss feed streaming and smirk now and then for a while)… the weird alternate reality of how things play at the “Daily Paul”. \u00c2\u00a0See here. \u00c2\u00a0Lately everyone has been “ON FIRE<\/a>“. \u00c2\u00a0It’s not even worth going past the headline. \u00c2\u00a0So we see Lonegan “powned” Booker, and oh isn’t that “bodies in the river” comment a laugh riot. \u00c2\u00a0 But we also see the place that cheers on Ben Carson for “telling the truth” about how “Obamacare” is the “worst thing since slavery<\/a>“. \u00c2\u00a0 (Not a stance taken by the Huffington Post.) \u00c2\u00a0And your agreement to Ted Cruz at the Value Voter Summit in claiming that the protesters were “paid Obama operative<\/a>“. \u00c2\u00a0 (Powned again?) \u00c2\u00a0Interestingly, previously they sighted Ted Cruz as a possible neo-con plant. \u00c2\u00a0(I note that a posting about Elizabeth Warren doing good received little but derisive comments, despite the fact that the message in posing it would be little different than the spirit of posting a link to “Rand Paul: Liberal hero”.) \u00c2\u00a0And this is your place to go for celebration of the Big Truckers rally<\/a> for the Constitution, or something<\/a>…<\/p>\n

And interesting to note… as speculators ponder the meaning of the coming New Jersey election<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cory Booker is all but certain to win the New Jersey special election for U.S. Senate.<\/em>
\nBut as polls show Republican rival Steve Lonegan tightening the race, Booker is getting an uncomfortable reminder that he will have to campaign hard to defend the seat just a year from now, when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be up for a full term.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meh. \u00c2\u00a0Reportedly Booker’s gambit was always to slide through this one and assume he would have to campaign more vigorously next year. \u00c2\u00a0Assuming he doesn’t actually lose, you do have to wonder… so what?<\/p>\n

And, three, two, one<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Rick Shaftan, a top adviser to Steve Lonegan, may not be known to many outside New Jersey and New York political circles, but he went viral today \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it cost him his job<\/em><\/p>\n

Well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I suppose the question of the day. \u00c2\u00a0For the next 15 minutes of flimsy political oriented diversion. \u00c2\u00a0 Is it a scandal if a politician sends text messages to a stripper… and there’s nothing particularly sexual in the comments? \u00c2\u00a0Oh, who knows? In a profanity-filled assessment of the race delivered via phone Thursday, Rick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13222"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13228,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13222\/revisions\/13228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}