cory bookerPoliticians don't play nice.

That's a fact. Still, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker blasted President Obama for running negative ads against Mitt Romney.

During an interview on Meet the Press, the Democrat and Obama supporter criticized the president's re-election team for it's attack ads on Bain Capital, a troubled company which Mitt Romney co-founded and once ran. Basically they are kicking out the message that Romney is a corporate exec who cares more about the bottom line than American jobs. Well, Booker found the whole stance "nauseating."

To be fair, Booker -- who many think should run for a national office -- went on to scold both sides for lobbing mean barbs back and forth (see video below) and is not happy with either camp. 

Welcome to national politics, dude! I'm not saying it's right, it's just the way it is. Passivity does not work at this level of the game. And it's nothing new. These political ploys date back to the '50s. (One of the most memorable? George H.W. Bush's despicable Willie Horton ad against Michael Dukakis.)

Yes, it's a seedy, head-shaking tactic, but an unavoidable one. Booker certainly knows that you have to get tough. Newark is one of the roughest cities in the country, and under him, it had its first homicide-free month in 40 years. Progress like that doesn't happen if you don't have a lot of fight in you. Now Booker just has to accept the fact that there may be no such thing as the high road in politics, especially when it comes to getting Americans to pay attention to your view.

Seeing the splash his comments made (Republicans jumped all over the possibility of an Obama turncoat), the social media-savvy politician (he has a million Twitter follows) released a YouTube video to express his general support for the President. Still, the mayor stuck to his guns on the issue of negative campaigning. He's not down with it and, so it seems, never will be.

Do you think Booker is unrealistic to expect the candidates to play nice?


Images via veni markovski/Flickr