Clinton or Sanders? Check out Martin O'Malley.

[elleng]

'Why can’t the media give Martin O’Malley a fair shake? From the few words he was allowed to utter in the Democratic presidential debates, he looks like the strongest candidate. He polls low because no one knows anything about him.

Are the ups and downs of the Clinton/Sanders horse race really more important than our country’s next four years?

O’Malley doesn’t carry any of the Clinton baggage. He hasn’t forgotten climate change. He has more concrete plans than rhetoric.
He’s younger than the other two candidates. He has Homeland Security credentials, having chaired the U.S. Conference of Mayors Homeland Security Task Force.

As mayor of Baltimore from 2000 to 2006, O’Malley reduced crime, achieved the city's first budget surplus in decades while cutting property taxes to the lowest level in 30 years. He was named by Time magazine “one of America’s top five big city mayors.”

During his governorship from 2007 to 2015, Maryland recovered all the jobs lost during the recession, reduced the cost of college tuition, maintained the best public schools in America for five straight years, invested in renewable energy and green jobs, repealed the death penalty, passed one of the toughest firearms laws in the nation, expanded pre-K education, and increased the state’s minimum wage for most workers to $10.10/hour.

Why is this candidate being left out in the cold?'

http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/letters/peckman-clinton-or-sanders-check-out-martin-o-malley/article_0aa1e6b2-da80-5d26-8b6b-72b0841a4f6d.html

[one_voice]

1. K&R

I don't know why O'Malley has been ignored. During the debates too. They just shut him out.

[antigop]

2. Yes, it's a damn shame he has been shut out. His voice needs to be heard.

Thanks, elleng.

[elleng]

3. You're welcome, antigop.

[Hortensis]

7. Yes, thanks and keep it up, Elleng. This is not the last

election, and his work now is preparing ground for further efforts later. And, who knows, if anything were to happen to Clinton this time around...

[CorporatistNation]

13. Marty Is A Buffer between Bernie And Hillary While Secondarily IF NOT PRIMARILY

vying for the VP Slot... as his eventual ticket to the POTUS position. He's dreamed of being POTUS since age 15... Marty needs to step back for AMERICA. THIS election is far too important for personal ambition.

[Armstead]

4. My hionest opinion? I think....

O'Malley would probably be a very good president, but he's not been a very good candidate on the national stage.

He just doesn't hit the right buttons in people, and how they perceive him. Can't say why.

[Hortensis]

9. IMO, MOM's problem was marketing, and a

small bit presentation, both of which can be improved. Did you notice how in the first debate his voice was noticeably weaker than Hillary's and Bernie's? I was really struck by it. He did far better in close-up interviews.

But it's the marketing that's terribly inadequate. Only think if O'Malley had been in Hillary's position after the "invisible primary," with media everywhere already touting him as the probable nominee, or at least a very strong contender, reporting on him in every mention of the Democratic side as if he really might be the next president?

He'd already be doing his presidential walk each time he appeared in public, and the other candidates would come over strident and pushy in the debates as they tried to force some camera attention away from the calm and confident frontrunner.

[NorthCarolina]

11. The sincerity factor is STRONG with Sanders. MoM had no

breathing room.

[newblewtoo]

5. Young, good looking,

well spoken, experienced. What is not to like. Oh yeah, the PTB don't think it's his turn. He is the most electable Democratic candidate in the race. He could prove to be a truly great president bridging many gaps, bring the party together while bringing in support from everyone from millennials to leaning Democratic independents.

It beats the alternative of a Trump / Cruz presidency. And that is what we are headed for with either of the other two candidates.

[one_voice]

8. +1

[99Forever]

6. The O'Malley fiasco in Ohio has caused me much concern with MO'M.

Yes, presidential campaigns are extremely complicated and require a lot of competent work. But missing not just the amount of signatures to get onto the Dem primary ballot AND the filing date to be a write-in too, are simply inexcusable self-induced mistakes. Whatever slim hope he had, probably went out the window when that happened. Which is really sad, because he had a lot of good things going for him.

[restorefreedom]

10. this was never meant to be a real primary

but rather a rubber stamp job of the preselected party choice. webb and chaffee were never serious threats to clinton, but om and sanders both presented better and have more authentic dem policy positions than clinton. and they both are a much bigger threat to the coronation than was anticipated.

therefore, they have to be squashed...except the people are not on board with the master plan.

there is hope in the "revolt"

[one_voice]

12. k

[Jim Lane]

14. O'Malley's problem is that he's a lot of people's second choice.

Clinton supporters say we can't go into the general election with a septuagenarian democratic socialist. Sanders supporters say that Clinton Derangement Syndrome would bring Republicans out of the woodwork to vote against her. O'Malley is subject to neither of these problems and, IMO, is the Democrat who'd have the best chance of winning in November.

On the Republican side, people sometimes talk about the "social conservative/evangelical lane" and the "Establishment lane" as being how the race will be winnowed down to two. On the Democratic side, O'Malley has no obvious lane.
* People who are happy with the party establishment have assumed for years that Clinton will be the nominee, and they're backing her.
* People who reject Clinton as too corporatist/hawkish/etc. want an emphatic rejection of politics as usual. Between Sanders and O'Malley, there isn't all that much daylight in terms of policy, but Sanders is more unconventional on style factors. The very factors that Clinton supporters point to, as problems for Sanders in November, are part of his appeal to the "insurrectionist" forces in the party. Nominating Sanders would be a clear departure from politics as usual.

At this point, it's very unlikely (though not impossible) that O'Malley will catch fire and go to the Convention with a plurality of delegates, let alone a majority. The most plausible path to an O'Malley nomination is that he gets out of the single digits, to do somewhat better, while neither Clinton nor Sanders can achieve a knockout. If the Convention delegates are split 40-40-20 or some such, after the first ballot (or after a few) some of the delegates in each of the larger camps might decide, "Well, at least O'Malley is better than that other leading candidate."

I think it far more likely that either Clinton or Sanders will have a majority of the delegates once the primaries end.

I don't think O'Malley is running for VP. If he were, he wouldn't have criticized "triangulation" as he did, nor would he have gone after Sanders on gun control. If his main goal were his personal advancement, then, when Barbara Mikulski announced her retirement, he would have dropped his Presidential campaign and run for her seat. At that point it was already apparent that his campaign results were disappointing and that Sanders had sewn up the "outsider/insurrectionist" lane.

[elleng]

15. Right that

'O'Malley is subject to neither of these problems and, IMO, is the Democrat who'd have the best chance of winning in November,' no doubt about it.

[Eric J in MN]

22. The biggest reason I support Bernie Sanders

...isn't that I prefer his style or policy proposals. It's that I trust him the most to try to do liberal things if he becomes president.

[JRLeft]

16. Hillary was suppose to get through the primary sleep walking. The entire process was rigged for

her.

[elleng]

17. Right, and now EVERYONE's 'nervous.'

[JRLeft]

18. All of the cheating and obstacles for her opponents and she hasn't put this thing away yet.

[elleng]

19. NO WAY for ANYONE to 'put this thing away'

at this point. There have been NO elections, primaries or caucuses, only daily/hourly/minute 'polls.'

Nate Silver ?@NateSilver538 Jan 5
Polling rule #1: General election polls are way more reliable, way sooner, than primary polls. http://53eig.ht/1NEdhXw

Nate Silver ?@NateSilver538 Jan 4
National polls are literally worse than useless. They have *negative* predictive power in Iowa and NH. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/to-win-in-iowa-or-new-hampshire-it-may-be-better-to-poll-worse-nationally/

[JRLeft]

20. If Bernie wins Iowa and New Hampshire, he probably makes up a lot ground in the south.

[elleng]

21. Not sure how that would work,

but surely not 'putting this away.'

[Eric J in MN]

23. If Bernie Sanders wins both IA and NH, then he'll get more donations

...which he can use for ads in southern states.