Democratic Newark Mayor Cory Booker is up in arms over a new GOP petition that highlights his criticisms of President Obama’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital and asks voters to “Stand with Cory,” New York Magazine reports.
Booker, a surrogate spokesman for the Obama campaign, became the GOP’s leading man after he told Meet the Press that Obama’s attacks on private equity were “nauseating.”
In the media firestorm that quickly ensued, Booker defended his support for the president, launching a social media campaign on Twitter using #IStandWithObama. Booker asked his supporters to stand with him and Obama on issues like marriage equality and affordable education for college students.
After the petition was created, Booker went on the Rachel Maddow Show to denounce the way the GOP has used his comments, saying the party was manipulating them in a “cynical manner” and “for their own purpose.”
Booker told Maddow “anybody in the GOP who wants to stand with me, please stand with me — stand with me for marriage equality as Barack Obama stands up for, stand with me for not turning back the clock on women in terms of medical issues and other things like Barack Obama is standing, stand with me on making healthcare more accessible, stand with me for making college more affordable, as President Obama is doing.”