newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Newark Mayor Cory Booker spoke to a crowd at the Democratic National Convention shortly after spraining an ankle on his way to the speech Tuesday morning, and then fired up his audience even further when he presented the Democratic party platform that evening.

"You can take out my ankles, you can take out my knees, but I'm still going to stand up for Barack Obama," Booker said in a breakfast speech at 9:15 a.m., according to Newsday.

Booker later said the Democratic platform was about job creation, and not about partisan politics. "It's not about left or right, but moving America and our economy forward," Booker said, according to WSJ.com.

He commented on raising taxes on the wealthy saying, according to Yahoo! News, "Being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare. It's patriotism."

Booker also said that President Obama has made a large difference for people and businesses in Newark and New Jersey and the rest of the nation. The mostly inspired crowd was chanting for Booker after he finished.

POLITICO pointed out that Booker received a good response on Twitter. CNN’s Piers Morgan wrote: “Fantastic speech by @CoryBooker - rousing, inspiring, passionate.” Mike O’Brien called the speech “urgent,” and said “Mayor Booker must have wanted the keynote. “

Other people posted that Booker “Out-Jerseyed Chris Christie.” In the possibility of Booker challenging Governor Christie for his position in 2013, the Newark mayor may have taken the first shot. At the DNC, he told a crowd that if more Democrats had come out to vote in New Jersey’s 2009 gubernatorial election, “the world wouldn’t know who Chris Christie is.”

“Listen, there will be lots of stuff said between now and the election next November about a lot of different people and things,” Christie responded, according to nj1015.com.  “I have a great personal and professional relationship with Cory Booker.”