Vouchertown USA

Cory Booker - the subject of my article today - has been elected mayor of Newark, N.J. in a landslide with 72% of the vote, three times as much as Deputy Mayor Ronald L. Rice. The story is a little less clear for the rest of his ticket. Central ward candidate Dana Rone and east ward candidate Agustor Amado have won their seats, and Luis Quintana and Mildred Crump Carlos Gonzalez have won at-large seats. But Ras Baraka, who ran on the other slate, has won the third at-large seat, and there will be run-offs in the west and south wards. Booker and his school choice slate have won big, but it's not a landslide. They'll have to wait for June 13 to see if they have a 4-4 split or a 6-2 majority.

Comments

[Clean Hands]

Two cheers! (Three cheers and a toast of 30-year-old Scotch when they close the first wasteland of a public school for lack of students... somehow, I'm not holding my breath for that, though.)

[76]

Was this the race with the ads basically calling support for vouchers support for Katrina (the hurricane, not any aid efforts afterward) and caviar?

If not, where was that?

[MP]

Was this the race with the ads basically calling support for vouchers support for Katrina (the hurricane, not any aid efforts afterward) and caviar?

You betcha.

Google is your friend.

[Jersey McJones]

Now, Ras Baraka is the son of the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) "Blues People" writer Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka (I happen to be a big fan, if you couldn't guess). Now, if you remember, Baraka was the NJ poet laureate until his poem "Someboody Blew up America" caused a stir for it's inference that Israel had something, directly or indirectly, to do with 9/11. Amiri was forced out of the honorary. Ras is quite the firebrand himself and will either make life easier for Booker, or far more difficult.

JMJ

[wellfellow]

Jersey! You're a Baraka fan?? Why am I not surprised? 😉

[Jersey McJones]

You have to read some of his books. Especially his early stuff. Very interesting stuff. I;'m not a big fan of his poetry, though.

JMJ

[rhywun]

You have to read some of his books.

If it's anything remotely like his rotten, abysmal, racist, nasty "poetry" - I'll pass, thanks.

[joe]

I've never read anything the man wrote, outside of some tightly-edited snips presented by political activists with an ax to grind. Since taking poetic language out of context pretty much destroys its meaning, I don't feel like I can draw any conclusions.

How about you, rhywun? Ever read anything of his from beginning to end?

[rhywun]

How about you, rhywun? Ever read anything of his from beginning to end?

Just the infamous poem. It's basically saying "how dare white people complain about 9/11 after all the shit they did". Yeah, whatever.