Booker Slammed for Picking Oprah Dinner Over Debate

While Newark Mayor Cory Booker was hobnobbing with Oprah Winfrey at an exclusive Jersey City fundraiser Thursday night, his competitors in the race for an empty U.S. Senate seat were debating at a forum located just blocks away from Newark City Hall.

Booker’s place at the debate table at the candidate’s forum held by the state chapter of the NAACP was set with a working microphone, a complementary bottle of water and a placard bearing his name. His chair was empty.

And it’s not as though no one noticed.

U.S. Reps. Frank Pallone (D-6) and Rush Holt (D-12), along with state Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-34) for two hours fielded questions from the audience of about 100 gathered at the Willing Heart Community Care Center. Every one of them took a shot at Booker for not showing up.

"I wish we could ask Mayor Booker," Rush Holt said, answering a question about school vouchers, a program Booker has supported. "We know where he stands on school vouchers, I wish we could ask him why."

Organizers of the event clearly took Booker’s absence as a snub. The moderator of the event, Linda McDonald Carter, early in the program gave each one of the candidates a free shot at Booker for not being at the event.

None declined:

"Not only has the mayor so far not shown up tonight, but he hasn’t shown up on any date or any opportunity  or forum where we’ve actually interacted," Pallone said. "I think that’s very unfortunate."

"We owe you something. We who are asking for your vote," Holt said. "We owe you the answers to your questions, a view of our vision, an examination of our record and a sense of our compassion and our passion."

"I think that it is imperative when you hold yourself up to be elected by a people, you have an obligation to be where the people are," Oliver said.

Booker also has chosen not to participate in a recent WABC-TV debate, the Somerset Run Civics Association forum, and has declined two upcoming debates.

Deborah Gregory, president of the Newark NAACP and an event organizer, said that Booker was invited to participate in the forum, but his campaign declined because of the Winfrey event.

Instead, Booker attended the private dinner fundraiser with the talk show queen at an upscale Jersey City restaurant. The event cost between $1,000 and $2,600 a plate.

"I think he could have split himself in two," said Deborah Gregory, president of the Newark NAACP. "He could have done both."

Pallone, Holt and Oliver agreed on most issues, with varying degrees of vehemence. Holt pushed his progressive credentials, Pallone aligned himself as a man in the mold of the late Frank Lautenberg and Oliver, the Washington outsider, pushed to be the first woman from New Jersey in the Senate.