Newark, NJ – Mayor Cory Booker won’t ‘rule out’ running for U.S. Senate in 2014, he told theGrio’s Todd Johnson in a wide-ranging interview Thursday.
“I can tell you with 100 percent certitude that my name will not be on a Senate ballot in 2012,” Booker said. “What happens three years from now…if I knew all that, I’d be a very wealthy man. The short answer is I’m never going to say never, I’m never going to close the door.”
This week, reports surfaced that Booker was positioning himself for a future senate bid, though it was unclear whether 2012 was a possibility.
The mayor has since stated emphatically that running in 2012 is out of the question.
On Monday, the Newark Star-Ledger reported the mayor had formed ‘CoryPAC’ a federal political action committee, which gives Booker considerable fundraising leverage for the future.
On the prospect of becoming possibly the only African-American senator, Booker was philosophical.
“I’d rather have a good senator than a senator of a certain race, background, gender – we need good people now in the Senate,” said Booker, who admitted the Senate isn’t diverse as it should be. ”…To have such a paucity in the last 20 years of African-American representation shows that we as a country still have a long way to go. I think it’s important that the African-American voice, just like the Italian voice, just like the Korean voice gets louder than it is represented right now in Congress.”
Booker also discussed the possibility of his state’s governor entering his hat into the presidential race in 2012.
”[Gov. Christie] would make a very strong challenger [to Pres. Barack Obama],” Booker said. “I’m hoping the Republican party brings the dialogue to a higher level…I’m hoping that [the campaign] doesn’t become the politics of personal destruction, the politics of hate. I hope it becomes uplifting political dialogue.”
Follow theGrio’s Todd Johnson on Twitter at @rantoddj
