Twitter follies: Cory Booker is no Anthony Weiner

(Image credit: (Max Morse/Getty Images))

last updated 8 January 2015

On Wednesday, we learned that New Jersey's Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Cory Booker, exchanges private Twitter messages with strippers. Or at least one stripper, Lynsie Lee of Portland, Ore. If the messages are private, how do we know that? Lee told us, on Twitter, back in March:

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Mayor Cory A. Booker has a high schooler's affinity for Twitter, reveling in its ceaseless flow of affirmation and infinite space for self-promotion.... Even as many politicians have adopted a hyperdisciplined approach to social media, or handed over their official Twitter accounts to image-conscious aides in the wake of online scandals involving the likes of Anthony D. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman, Mr. Booker's fingers seem to rarely stray from the keyboard. [New York Times]

There are some valid grounds for this comparison. Weiner and Booker are both young Democrats who used Twitter very often and very effectively while in public office. Both have exchanged private messages with young women prone to taking their clothes off, and, in both cases, we know this because the women revealed the correspondence. Here's National Republican Senatorial Committee strategist Brad Dayspring:

Weiner sent sexually explicit text messages to women, after resigning from Congress for tweeting photos of his crotch to women. His post-Congress exchanges with Sydney Leathers did a lot to sink his once-promising bid to be New York City's next mayor. Leathers returned the favor by making a sex tape and crashing Weiner's election-night party. Weiner's public response to these revelations was nothing short of disastrous.

Booker, on the other hand, sent Lee a message that "could be out of a Victorian courtship primer," as Mediate's Tommy Christopher puts it. If there's more than that one message, we don't know about it and Lee isn't saying. She does give this context to BuzzFeed, however: Booker "was just flattering me. It began with me sending an actual tweet saying that the West Coast loved him, especially me. So he replied with that just to flatter me :)"

Here's the rest of the story, such as it is: Booker and Lee apparently connected because they are both in the same Twitter-themed movie, Follow Friday: The Film — along with BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith. Booker is comfortably ahead of his Republican opponent, Steve Lonegan, in the polls, and Lonegan — who has previously questioned Booker's manliness — has no comment on this story. And to understand Booker's pitch-perfect response, you have to know that Lee works at a strip club called Casa Diablo, which bills itself as the world's first vegan strip club.

But I'm not sure there are any losers. Booker's Senate race is tightening, but mildly flirtatious banter with a topless dancer who lives 3,000 miles away isn't going to sink him. And Lonegan may pick up some support among voters who hate strippers or vegans, but at this point anything (non-scandalous) that keeps the attention focused on Booker and his social-media prowess probably hurts Lonegan more than it helps.

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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