Just when it seemed he could use some more positive p.r., Newark Mayor Cory Booker once again stumbled into an opportunity to be part-time superhero.
Booker had taken notice Thursday night of a series of tweets about a dog out in the cold from a
New Jersey News 7 ABC reporter who had spotted the trembling pooch on the stoop of a Newark home. Toni Yates and her camera crew stopped back several times to check to see if the dog had been brought inside, but found it in the below-freezing temperatures each time.
Eventually, Booker found his way to the scene and the shivering canine, along with a couple of police cruisers.
"This is brutal weather, this dog is shaking really bad and you just can't leave your dogs out here on a day like this and go away and expect them to be OK," Booker told the handy TV crew. "Hypothermia on any animal, including a human animal will, set in pretty quickly. So this is very sad, you can just feel the dog shaking pretty badly."
The mayor then scooped up the shivering dog up and stashed it in the back of one of the police cars. Booker was able to find the cellphone number of the dog's owner, who said he had no idea the pooch was outside.
It wasn't the first time the 43-year-old Democrat has been at the right place at the right time to set things straight. Like shoveling snow, taking in storm victims, and going on a food-stamp diet.
Probably his top exploit came in April 2012. Booker was returning home and found his next-door neighbor's house ablaze. The woman was screaming that her daughter was inside. Booker ran into the fiery house and pulled the young woman from the home, hoisting her on his shoulders.
Last month, Booker announced that he may run for the seat of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a fellow Democrat
Lautenberg, 89, said he had no plans to retire and joked about spanking the two-term nayor of New Jersey's largest city.
On Wednesday, Lautenberg told the Star-Ledger that Booker still had a way to go before reaching the senate.
“He’s got a lot of work to do — a lot of work that should have been done and hasn’t been done,” Lautenberg said.
“Maybe if the mayor can solidify the fact that he wants to improve Newark by being there, things would be different,” Lautenberg continued. “But he’s free to do as he wants to do.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.