Newark Mayor Cory Booker is apparently still paying penance for his blasphemy against the Obama campaign on “Meet the Press” last week. NJ.com reports that Booker’s Communications Director Anne Torres stepped down today:
“I just decided it is best if I pursued other opportunities,” Torres said by phone. “We have very different views on how communications should be run.”
While a crucial part of the administration’s public face and dealings with the press, Torres’ role is strictly confined to city business. It is unclear what role, if any, she would have had in preparing Booker’s remarks on “Meet the Press,” wherein the mayor said he had “personal” problems with President Obama’s attacks on Bain Capital — problems he called nauseating.
As NJ.com reports, it’s not clear what part Torres would have played in Booker’s “Meet the Press” remarks. The implication here is that Booker’s comments didn’t accurately reflect his own beliefs, but were instead a communications blunder by his staff. Which is ridiculous – this wasn’t a speech, it was a panel discussion. Whether or not Torres prepped the mayor on the negativity in the Obama anti-Bain ads, Booker was clearly speaking for himself when he criticized them.
While the comments weren’t particularly damaging for Booker, at least not with his constituents, they did hurt Obama and are continuing to drag down his anti-Bain strategy. Did Booker part ways with his communications director under pressure from the Obama campaign, or was it a decision he came to on his own? There’s always the possibility that Booker and his communications staff clashed over the way the initial response to the controversy was handled — the creepy hostage video, for example.
There is a larger issue here — there have been serious questions raised about the possibility and implications of a state filing bankruptcy and New Jersey has been one of the ones mentioned in the speculation. The issue would be state pensions and what (if any) the state would be obligated to pay on them post bankruptcy. And Newark is, well, not the prosperous part of Jersey. n nThis may be the split between Obama and the unions, in particular SEIU and NEA — SEIU is garbagemen and highway workers, NEA is teachers and state pensions are a very big issue of concern for both because you aren't eligible for Social Security if you are instead paying into a state pension program. And what is not explicitly being stated here is that the money that outfits like Bain Capitol uses to do the stuff they do/did (for good or evil) is, in many cases, pension fund money. n nA percentage of the public sector worker's pay is deducted (in my case it was a bit over 7%) and it is goes into the pension fund that someone (in my case the Hampshire County Retirement Board) invests in stuff (like Bain) and hopefully gets a return on the investment because what no one is really quite saying is that the projected liabilities of these pension funds vastly exceeds what is in them. They are going to go broke long before Social Security does, and that is what the bankruptcy issue is about because the states are on the hook to make up the difference between what the pension fund has and what it is obligated to pay in benefits. n nNew Jersey. California. There are about a half dozen states that are really on the edge of bankruptcy and that is the schism here — public sector employees and state officials wanting Bain's profits while Obama and private sector employees upset with Bain having made the profits. Obama got elected in 2008 by promising absolutely everything to absolutely everyone, one can do that as a candidate but not as the incumbent.