I'll say this about Martin O'Malley [View all]

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...as a lifelong Democrat from a Democratic family, Martin O'Malley has repeatedly stepped up to challenging elections and has consistently won the support of Democrats through progressive stances and progressive policy achievements. His efforts in office have resulted in significant and concrete progressive changes and improvements in the lives of millions of citizens of my state. My pleasure and pride in seeing him step up to the challenge of running against a Democrat with not only national name recognition, but a built-in support base from a previous run for the presidency, is compounded by the decidedly progressive positions his campaign has put in front of his candidacy.

Whatever the outcome of this election, I think our party will owe Martin O'Malley a debt of gratitude for attempting to steer our party's presidential politics in an aggressively progressive direction - that effort matched, of course, by Bernie Sander's own progressive campaign - both of which have resulted in a national discussion of progressive ideals and initiatives which have already influenced the debate in our national legislature, as well as positively influenced the worthwhile campaign of our party's current front-runner in the polls.

I think O'Malley's bid is a heroic effort, typical of his political career in which he's repeatedly run against adversity and other daunting challenges to advance the causes he believes in. As we debate the issues these candidates present and advocate, let's not lose sight of the valuable and gratifying service our Democratic candidates honor us with in their pursuit of public office. Also, as we reflect on the presidential bids of Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and the others, let's not diminish that effort by reducing our primary to a mere horse race. There's still a lot of time between now and when the actual voting starts to further the progressive causes these candidates represent in their campaigns. That should be our main focus, not the popularity contest.