Newark Mayor Cory Booker's right hand is bandaged at a news conference in Newark, N.J., Friday, April 13, 2012 (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

When Cokie Roberts, senior news analyst for NPR and veteran political correspondent, mentions your name in her weekly commentary on Morning Edition, it not only resonates in Washington, DC, but in political camps in every state. “Cory Booker,” referred to as “an Obama surrogate,” had given Gov. Mitt Romney “a boost” according to Roberts, because the Newark mayor called attacking Bain Capital a “mistake.”

Was it also Mayor Booker’s mistake and had he “lost control of the message” as reported by Dan Goldberg in the Newark Star Ledger? The Republican National Committee certainly took control seizing on Booker’s statement to start a petition with an image of “Booker’s stern expression on top of a letter that asks you to stand with Cory Booker and denounce Obama’s attack on free enterprise.” And that was just the beginning of the fallout and the Republican National Committee exploitation of the Bain statement.

Booker’s ‘boost’ for Romney was a broadside for President Barack Obama’s campaign team, throwing them into damage control mode and, according to the Associated Press, it’s also created “a mess” for Cory Booker, who, at first, tried cleaning up his “nauseating” comment which aired on NBC News Meet the Press, with a hurriedly put-together YouTube video both backtracking and justifying his comments.

Perhaps realizing addressing a YouTube audience wasn’t going to quell the growing uproar, Booker, fully focused and in damage control mode, appeared last night on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show expressing his feelings about the Republican Party using him to attack the president.