Affeldt discusses his struggle to overcome his anti-gay bias in a new memoir, "To Stir a Movement," and believes the diversity of his adopted city helped him through that process: "There's a chapter in there of me coming to San Francisco and being hesitant because I had homophobia, and now I don't," he told the Associated Press. "I see more San Francisco as a city of love and a city of passion and compassion. It's unbelievable this city. To see that and to have my heart change as a city I didn't ever want to come to, to a city that I'm so thankful I'm going to be part of for a long time, it talks about that. For me, it was an awesome deal."

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And that should clear the way for Booker. Sure, there’ll be a few other New Jersey Democrats who test the waters in the days and weeks ahead, but the smart money says that they – like Lautenberg – will eventually swallow their pride and step out of Booker’s way. And if they don’t, he’ll be heavily favored to beat them in the primary. Republicans will come up with a candidate too, but the Garden State GOP’s bench is thin and the state hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate since (the very liberal) Clifford Case in 1972. Booker, with his broad popularity and limitless treasury, figures to be a reliable caretaker of that Democratic winning streak.

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"I am not announcing the end of anything. I am announcing the beginning of a two-year mission to pass new gun safety laws, protect children from toxic chemicals and create more opportunities for working families in New Jersey," Lautenberg told the New Jersey Star-Ledger. "While I may not be seeking re-election, there is plenty of work to do before the end of this term and I'm going to keep fighting as hard as ever for the people of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate."

At age 89, Lautenberg is the oldest member of the Senate and the last World War II veteran in the upper chamber. He was widely expected to retire at the end of his term, to create an opening for the ambitious Booker, but when Booker recently publicly floated a potential bid, Lautenberg seemed to find new vigor for his job and took pot shots at Booker.

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After I wrote about Cory Booker's decision last month to take the SNAP Challenge – to take "a view of what life can be like for millions of low-income Americans" – I couldn't get the idea of it out of my head. The challenge is simple in concept but demanding in its execution: see what it's like to live for one week on a food budget equivalent to your state's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program's (SNAP) benefits. Participants can use their existing spices and condiments, but no other foodstuffs, nor they can accept food "from friends, family, or at work." Because I live in New York, I'd have a slightly more generous allowance than New Jersey's Booker got – a total of $36.86 for a week of eating. And because my two daughters are awesome, they said they wanted to do it too as I soon as I mentioned it to them. So for the past week, we've been eating on a little over five bucks a person per day.

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"Buckle your seat belts!" said Rivera before announcing, on his radio show on WABC-AM in New York, that he is "truly contemplating" a Senate bid.

He said he has spoken to some people in the New Jersey GOP about a run, but he didn't say what they told him.

Rivera got a mixed response when he asked his 30,000 Twitter followers how they feel about him challenging either Sen. Frank Lautenberg or Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

At 89, Lautenberg is the oldest sitting U.S. senator. The Democrat hasn't said if he will seek re-election.

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No, I’m not talking about Massachusetts, although it is possible that Scott Brown, who appears to be readying for a comeback bid, will defeat his Democratic opponent – likely Ed Markey, but maybe Steve Lynch – and return to the upper chamber. The unexpected drama this week is playing out a few states to the south, in New Jersey.

It’s hard to say exactly how much trouble that state’s junior senator, Bob Menendez, may be in, or if he’s in any trouble at all. Certainly, though, the headlines are alarming, and the existence of an FBI investigation has got to be concerning to Democrats, who know that any scandal that forces Menendez from the Senate would empower Gov. Chris Christie to appoint a Republican successor.

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Silicon Valley, by and large, spends Democratic with its fundraising cash, and overwhelmingly voted for Barack Obama last November. The numbers brook no dispute. In the last presidential cycle, 91 percent of campaign contributions by Apple employees and 97 percent by Google employees went to Obama. In Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, Obama crushed Romney by margins of over 40 percent. The gap is so bad that Nate Silver even suggested it could potentially be blamed for the poor performance of Romney's campaign in the technological arena. The best geeks just didn't want to work for him.

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Currently, there is just one black governor, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, and only one other – Doug Wilder in Virginia – has been elected since Reconstruction. A third, New York’s David Paterson, served an interim stint after Eliot Spitzer’s 2008 demise but declined to seek a full term. There is also just one black senator today, a Republican, Tim Scott of South Carolina.

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Everyone loves Cory Booker. He saves people from fires. He opens his home to Sandy evacuees. He tweets about Hot Pockets. And now he is coming clean about his own homophobia during college -- and how he struggled to overcome it. This guy!

The Stanford Daily, along with BuzzFeed, unearthed a 1992 Op-Ed in which Booker wrote candidly about his early homophobia and subsequent "tolerance phase," a period during which he renounced his bias, but still felt personally disgusted by gay people:

I stopped telling my gay jokes. Fags, flamers and dykes became homosexuals and people of differing sexual orientation and, of course, I had my gay friend. But I was disgusted by gays. The thought of two men kissing each other was about as appealing as a frontal lobotomy.

The young Booker doesn't pull any punches, either: "Allow me to be more direct, escaping the euphemisms of my past — I hated gays," he wrote. "The disgust and latent hostility I felt toward gays were subcategories of hatred, plain and simple."

But all of that changed after talking with a gay counselor during his freshman year:

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After years of playing coy, the dapper newsman Anderson Cooper finally officially came out of the closet in an open letter to Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan on July 2. But though it came as zero surprise, a few remained undeterred by the news.

I don't care, I'm still gonna make a run at Anderson Cooper. —Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) July 2, 2012

 

When Aetna informed doctoral student Arijit Guha, just as he was in the midst of stage-4 colon cancer, that he'd reached his insurance coverage cap, the 31-year-old took his story to Twitter and found himself engaged in a public conversation with his insurer's CEO, Mark T. Bertolini. He wound up getting full coverage – and making the debate over health care intimate and urgent.

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"Let there be no doubt, I will complete my full second term as mayor. As for my political future, I will explore the possibility of running for The United States Senate in 2014," Booker said.

Booker's run would be for the seat currently occupied by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, another Democrat. Lautenberg, who at 88 is the oldest U.S. Senator, has not announced whether or not he will seek another term when his is up in 2014.

Booker continued:

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But I’m starting to doubt myself, at least a little. Booker recently talked about his political future with Charlie Stile of the (Bergen County) Record, saying that he’ll decide soon whether to challenge Christie or mount a campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2014. (Booker’s second term as mayor expires in ’14 and he has plainly had enough of that job.)

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Booker, who leads the state's largest city, also says he's also thinking about running for the U.S. Senate.

He tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that he has to decide on a gubernatorial bid in the next couple of weeks out of respect for his party and the other Democratic candidates who'd like to take on the outspoken Christie.

Speculation about the 43-year-old's political future has been high for much of his second term as mayor.

Christie has said he's running in the November 2013 election.

As for the Senate, the seat held by 88-year-old Democrat Frank Lautenberg is up in 2014.

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On Nov. 18, the mayor busted out a little Plutarch for his Twitter followers, quoting, "An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics." Those were fighting words to some who took umbrage with the notion, prompting Booker to follow up: "We pay 4 HUGE back end govt programs: prisons, police, etc. If we invested in Schools, nutrition, etc we’d save $ & create wealth."

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According to PPP,  Christie, who recently filed for reelection in 2013, is beating out all possible Democratic opponents, including the very popular Newark Mayor Cory Booker. PPP reports:

He leads Cory Booker 50-36, Richard Codey 53-31, Steve Sweeney 57-20, and Barbara Buono 60-20. Against Sweeney and Buono Christie actually wins the Democratic vote, something I don't think PPP has ever found a candidate in any contest we've ever polled doing across party lines.

In a hypothetical match-up against Springsteen that PPP threw in there "just for fun," Christie is leading by a 61-25 percent margin.

As for 2016, 44 percent of voters say Christie shouldn't run, and only 38 percent say he should.

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Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 88, also a Democrat, is the current seat-holder, and so far has not announced his plans for 2014. Lautenberg has a 43/36 approval rating, according to PPP, and would have a big win in a hypothetical race against Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.

But according to the poll, only 36 percent of Democratic primary voters in the state say he should run again, and 45 percent say he should retire. From PPP:

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Watch:

Via MediaMatters

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Mitt Romney put out an ad Monday using Newark Mayor Cory Booker, along with former Tennessee politician Harold Ford Jr. and former auto czar Steve Rattner, to attack the Obama campaign for its criticism of Romney's work with Bain Capital.  "Have you had enough of President Obama's attacks on free enterprise?" the ad asks. "His own supporters have."

Booker, of course, has become infamous for telling David Gregory on "Meet the Press" Sunday that Obama ads criticizing Romney's Bain work are "nauseating" and "crap." Then Harold Ford Jr., who laughably tried to become the senator from Wall Street in 2010 after failing to become the senator from Tennessee in 2006, couldn't stand seeing Booker getting all the centrist Wall Street love, and jumped in behind him: ”I would not have backed off the comments, if I were Mayor Booker," Ford told his friends on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday. "Private equity is not a bad thing. Private equity is a good thing in many instances." For good measure the Romney ad also scooped up Rattner's criticism – also on "Morning Joe" – from a few weeks ago: "I don't think there's anything Bain Capital did that they need to feel bad about," Rattner told the crew.

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Which meant, naturally, that I only caught about five minutes of looking at the actual stage, and spent the rest of the time tweeting about how ridiculous this entire concept was. Apparently I didn't miss much, either: Piers Morgan, in his typical celebrity ass-kissing way, spent the entire hour talking about how he was the inspiration for Charlie Sheen getting on Twitter (as if that's a positive thing?); for getting Martha Stewart to have her fans tweet her something about pierogis live on the air (technology!) while she spoke about the proper etiquette for shouting out into the Twittersphere (Martha uses Twitter the way a lot of celebrities do: not to interact with her fans but as a sort of message board for her thoughts of the day); and for talking to Alyssa Milano in a fascinating story about why she decided to tell everyone the sex of her baby on Twitter.

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