Booker Lonegan side by side.JPG

Republican Steve Lonegan and Democrat Cory Booker agree on almost nothing except Syria.

(Star-Ledger staff)

NEWARK — When he was first elected mayor of Newark, the tale of T-Bone was a staple of Cory Booker's speeches.

"I said hello to this guy and I’ll never forget he leaped off the steps where he was standing and looked at me and threatened my life," Booker said during a 2007 speech at the New School in New York.

"I later got to know this guy and his name was T-Bone and I’m a vegetarian so that was a particularly vicious threat," Booker said to big laughs.

Months later, The Star-Ledger tried to find T-Bone, to no avail. Those who knew Booker then said the character was a fabrication.

But now, as Booker faces off against Republican Steve Lonegan in a heated battle to replace the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the tale of T-Bone is back with a vengeance.

An article published Thursday in the conservative National Review rehashed the story, quoting respected Newark historian Clement Price, who said the mayor confessed to him that T-Bone was a tall tale. In an interview with The Star-Ledger Thursday, Price again said Booker's story was made-up. "Cory realized that he had erred," Price said of his 2008 conversation with the mayor. "He told me that my criticism of his invention of T-Bone made perfect sense to him and he had made a mistake."

The Booker campaign declined to comment but spokesman Kevin Griffis cited previous comments Booker has made in which he insisted T-Bone was a real person but conceded he was used to illustrate a larger point.

"He is an archetype of so many people that are out there. He is 1,000 percent a real person," Booker said in 2007.

Now, six years later, those who chided Booker then said it was too late to worry about the veracity of T-Bone.

Rahaman Muhammad, a city union leader who has been one of Booker’s strongest critics, was among those who originally questioned the veracity of T-Bone.

He said Thursday he was baffled Booker used the character in the first place, except that it may have appealed to donors.

"He actually has real experiences that he can share," Muhammad said. "To me this does not disqualify him from being a U.S. Senator. These are urban stories that many of us have in this city. There may be different names, but there are many of these types of stories. Unfortunately he made up a character for his story."

Booker has not used the T-Bone story since The Star-Ledger’s story in 2007, but the re-emergence of the incident indicates pitfalls for Booker as he fends off a fierce challenger in Lonegan, the former mayor of Bogota.

"T-Bone is as fake as the myth about Cory Booker’s record in Newark," Lonegan spokesman Will Gattenby said. "Now Cory Booker is running for the U.S. Senate to do to America what he has done to his city; allowing higher taxes, more violent crime, and a near doubling of the unemployment rate."

Booker maintains a big lead over Lonegan in the polls. In the latest poll released Thursday by Fairleigh Dickinson University, he leads 28 percentage points — 50 percent to 22 percent.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, said the attention to Booker’s past will likely not hurt him much in New Jersey, but could affect his national image.

"There are two kinds of campaigns: one is the one in New Jersey and one is the national campaign about a prominent, up and coming Democrat," Zelizer said. "A story like this won’t bring down his candidacy but he will have to deal with it."

Moreover, Zelizer said, American politics is known for its tendency toward reinvention.

"If he comes across with a big win, a story like this won’t affect his career," Zelizer said. "The Senate is a place where people are notoriously making stories like this up."

RELATED COVERAGE

• Booker wins Democratic U.S. Senate primary election

• Cory Booker's celebrity status could cut both ways in U.S. Senate

• Complete coverage of the 2013 special U.S. Senate election







FOLLOW LEDGER POLITICS: TWITTER | FACEBOOK | GOOGLE+