The most intriguing metropolitan mayoral race occurred May 14, 2002, when incumbent Sharpe James was sought an unprecedented fifth term. However, James would not be vying against the typical candidate. The 66-year-old James was about to face the fight of his political life thanks to freshmen City Councilman Cory Booker.
             Booker grew up in the wealthy suburb of Bergen County, New Jersey. He was named Mr. Football of New Jersey in 1987 and attended Stanford University on an athletic scholarship. In 1992, he traveled to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. Upon his return to the U.S. he attended Yale Law School. Instead of embarking on a high paying law career Booker decided to move to Newark, New Jersey and become an activist for black residents whom he believed were being supplanted by the inadequate administration of Mayor Sharpe James. In 1999, Booker gained national attention by fasting and camping out next to a series of abject housing projects for ten days. He was attempting to draw the public's attention to the lack of police protection for the law-abiding tenants from gang members and drug dealers (Booker, 2002). Soon afterwards, Booker lived in a trailer for five months where each night he parked on street corners thus obstructing the normal routine of drug dealers (Booker, 2002).
             After seeing much Booker's activism on Fox News, 60 Minutes and CNN I, along with several political commentators and political strategist, believed Cory Booker would be the next Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. To my utter chagrin, my predictions were wide of the mark, about negative seven percent wide to be exact. To understand why my chosen candidate failed I decided to analyze the vital elements of his campaign. The first thing that came to mind was Cory's age. Cory at the time was 32 years old and was challenging a 66-year-old incumbent. Sharpe and his cronies began to plant seeds of doubt and apprehension in the older African Am...