This Associated Press article originally appeared March 7, 2009 in Newsday.
Newark politics have traditionally been a street fight, but Mayor Cory Booker says he's come to realize that building alliances with rivals is more effective than clashing with them.
The 39-year-old says he's moving beyond the petty political squabbles of the past and forging new relationships with local leaders who opposed his rise to power. The state's largest city cannot afford those divisions, he said, as it battles to transform itself from an icon for urban neglect.
"I definitely made mistakes in the beginning," said Booker, now in his third year as mayor. "I came into office at a time when there were still a lot of people in positions of power who had tried to crush me and to marginalize me in the past and I stuck to that script when I got in. The challenges that face Newark are bigger than those petty political squabbles, so I'm leaving them behind."
The adage that all politics is local remains true in Newark, where political machines control its five wards to varying degrees. That political establishment was slow to warm up to Booker after he moved to the city and won a seat on its municipal council in 1998.
Richard J. Codey, president of the New Jersey Senate, said Booker has learned he needs to compromise with his rivals to achieve broader goals.
"Cory Booker's enemies have come to the realization that they can't beat him and he realizes that he can't beat them in (ward) races in which he's not a candidate," said Codey, a former New Jersey governor. "So, these new alliances are a marriage of convenience that works for both sides."
Booker said his new alliances create "win-win" situations that maximize scarce resources and allow him to focus on reinvigorating a city that has long been plagued by high crime and poverty.
Booker is a former Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law School graduate who was raised in the affluent New Jersey community of Harrington Park. Critics suggested he was using Newark as a political springboard to higher office early in his career.
In 2002, Booker lost a bitter mayoral battle with incumbent Sharpe James, a political boss who had run the city since 1986. James derided Booker as a "carpetbagger" during the campaign, which was depicted in the Oscar-nominated documentary "Street Fight."
Booker won his second bid for mayor in 2006. James chose not to seek re-election, and is now in prison after being convicted for his role in the cut-rate sales of city land to his former mistress.
Phil Alagia, executive director of the Essex County Democratic Party, said the Booker team initially operated at a disadvantage after its victory because of its inexperience. After years as the antiestablishment voice, the Booker team was suddenly in power.
Booker himself was unfamiliar with some of the levers of power, after having been kept out of the loop during his council term by James, according to Alagia. One of his first acts was to target political rivals who opposed him at the ward level.
"These are political growing pains," Alagia said. "The Booker team fought their way into the mayor's office and that attitude carried over afterward. Cory realizes now that he doesn't have to fight every fight as mayor; he can do more by having everyone be part of" his team.
U.S. Rep. Donald Payne and his son, Newark councilman Donald Payne Jr., are longtime political powers in the city's south ward. Formerly a Booker opponent, the elder Payne said the economic slowdown makes the new alliances a necessity.
"We don't have a choice," Payne said. "We have to come together in the face of this economic challenge."
Pablo Fonseca, manager of Booker's 2010 re-election campaign, said the new alliances with former rivals are not a sign of political weakness. The mayor's 83 percent approval rating in a recent poll is the highest since he became a subject of political polling in 2000, Fonseca said, and his grassroots political machine is growing stronger every year.
"These wars are unnecessary, because at the end of the day the mayor is still the mayor," Fonseca said.
Booker has succeeded in reducing violent crimes, fostering new economic development programs in the downtown business district and bringing new housing to outlying residential areas. Newark recorded eight homicides and 28 shootings in the first 55 days of 2009, according to Newark Police. That compares with 16 homicides and 49 shootings during the same period of 2005 - James' last full year in office.
However, that progress now is being threatened by an economic slowdown that boosted the city's unemployment rate to 11.3 percent from 7.7 percent during the 12-month-period ending in December.
Steve Adubato, a longtime community organizer, said Booker _ a supporter of President Barack Obama _ won him over by rejecting opportunities at the state and federal level after the November election. He now supports Booker's 2010 mayoral re-election campaign.
"With us behind him it won't be a serious contest," Adubato said of the 2010 mayoral race. "This way he can concentrate on running the city instead of running for re-election. Ultimately, that's best for the city."
Adubato, 76, said that it's better for the city when he and Booker face these challenges together. His nonprofit organization include a charter school, five preschool locations and an adult medical daycare facility, job training programs and youth sport leagues.
"There are many ways to achieve the same goal _ which is make the city better," Booker said. "We tried to do a revolution. Now, we're trying to do an evolution."
