Cory Booker

About

Cory Booker (born April 27th, 1969) is an American politician who has served as the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey since 2006. Online, he has gained a celebrity status for his spontaneous and open interaction with the people of Newark through his Twitter account.^[1]

Online History

Cory Booker established his personal website, CoryBooker.com^[2], in late November 2002. As of January 2013, this website is used as a hub site for information about Booker’s work in Newark and has a section^[3] where city residents can submit stories of how Booker’s policies and initiatives have helped change their lives. The site also links to his official social media accounts including Twitter^[1], question and answer site Quora^[4], LinkedIn^[5], YouTube^[6], Flickr^[7] and Facebook^[8], where he has more than 132,000 likes. Of these accounts, Booker is most active on Twitter, which he joined on August 11th, 2008.

Reputation

Blizzard Response

On New Year’s Eve 2009 and during several snowstorms in February 2010, Booker picked up a shovel and went around Newark helping those who could not get out of their homes following the storms. However, his snow shoveling did not gain media attention until a blizzard on December 26th, 2010 which dropped more than 24 inches of snow on the city. During the storm, Booker’s Twitter feed turned into a crisis helpline, as he retweeted calls for help and posted responses noting that he was digging out people’s cars (shown below). His tweets were featured on Vanity Fair^[11], The Wrap^[12] and the New York Daily News^[13] on December 28th, followed by a profile piece in TIME^[14] the next day. However, many Newark residents were not happy with the mayor’s efforts^[15], noting the city’s poor planning as sections of the city were left unplowed for up to 48 hours.

#CoryBookerStories

On April 13th, 2012, Booker rushed in to a fire at his next-door neighbor’s home with members of his security team to help evacuate residents^[16], going in a second time to rescue a woman from her second-story bedroom. Both Booker and the woman were taken to hospitals and treated for second-degree burns and smoke inhalation. Hours after the event, two single topic blogs were created on Tumblr, Super Cory Booker^[17], featuring image macros, and Cory Booker Story^[19], which used a Texts From Hillary inspired format, created two-pane images featuring a photo of the mayor looking at a mobile phone (shown below) On Twitter, the hashtag #CoryBookerStories began appearing featuring Chuck Norris Facts-style anecdotes about the mayor. It was used nearly 25000 times on April 13th.^[18]

Hurricane Sandy

Following October 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, Booker tweeted posts of support for those stranded and chronicled his own efforts including taking homeless people to safety, delivering supplies to shelters and checking up on people whose homes were damaged by fallen trees. Highlights from his Twitter feed were shared on Cnet^[20] and People^[21] in late October. On November 1st, three days after Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, Booker began inviting people who were without power into his home to charge their electronics.^[22] That day, approximately a dozen people came to Booker’s home, where provided food, DVDs and toys to entertain the younger visitors.^[23] On November 5th, Mashable^[24] compiled a series of the Mayor’s best tweets in the wake of the hurricane, highlighting his physical actions as well as the virtual advice he provided to residents.

There is someone at my house now (Eric). I’ve got space u can relax in, charge devices & even a working DVD player. Come by@my_serenelove
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) November 1, 2012

SNAP Challenge

On November 19th, 2012, Twitter user @MWadeNC^[30], a 39-year-old married woman from North Carolina, made a comment to Booker asking why children need school lunches provided to them if their families already have access to food stamps. Booker then challenged @MWadeNC to try to live on food stamps for a week or a month in New Jersey, which is known for its high cost of living.^[31] On December 3rd, Booker began the SNAP Challenge, named for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program^[37] that offers these benefits. Booker alloted himself $33 per week for groceries, based on the average monthly food stamp benefit in New Jersey, $133.23 per person per month.^[32] He chronicled his journey via his LinkedIn blog^[35] and Instagram^[29], where he shared photos of the meals he was eating. The challenge was featured on NPR^[33], Gothamist^[34] and NJ.com^[36], however, it is unclear whether or not @MWadeNC went through with the challenge. He was met with some criticism, as food stamps are supposed to be a supplemental and not a person’s only source of money for food. Booker offered a rebuttal on CNN (shown below), noting that many Americans unfortunately cannot survive without the SNAP program.

Dog Rescue

On January 24th, 2013, local New York area news reporter Toni Yates tweeted^[25] that she saw two dogs outside in 12 degrees Fahrenheit weather, tagging both her news channel, Eyewitness News, and Cory Booker in the tweet. Soon after, Booker and a police squad car responded to the scene, where the mayor took the one dog that was still outside, Cha Cha, into the police car to keep warm.^[26] The cops were able to track down the owner, who claimed he was unaware the dog had left the house.^[28]

Because of you that dog was rescued. Thank you for reaching out. Thank u for your kindness RT <a href="https://twitter.com/toniyates7">toniyates7</a>: 2 dogs left outside, freezing.</p>— Cory Booker (CoryBooker) January 24, 2013

Personal Life

Cory Booker was born in Washington D.C. on April 27th, 1969 to Cary Alfred and Carolyn Rose (Jordan) Booker. He was raised in a religious household in Harrington Park, New Jersey and graduated from the Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan in 1986. The same year, he was named as a defensive back player in the USA Today All-USA high school football team.^[9] In 1991, Booker received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Stanford, followed by a Master of Arts in sociology from the school in 1992. During his schooling, he ran The Bridge, a student-run crisis hotline, and was elected senior class president. He went on to receive an honors U.S. history degree from the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1994 and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1997. While attending Yale, Booker ran free legal clinics for New Haven’s low-income residents and participated in a Big Brother program. Prior to being elected as Newark’s mayor, Booker served as a City Councilor from 1998 to 2002. Outside of his political career, Booker is a vegetarian, does not partake in alcohol and lives in Newark’s South Ward^[10], which was noted for being a rough area of the city, with drug dealers and boarded-up houses, when he moved there in 2006.