Why Martin O'Malley Could Be the Future of the Democratic Party
'He's trailing in the polls and low on money, but when he rolls up the sleeves and pulls out his guitar you see the leader he could be
The trees are on fire in New Hampshire when Martin O'Malley says the first batshit-crazy thing that makes me want to turn my Chevy Cruze around and head for the state liquor store and then some late-October leaf-peeping. Speaking before 200 or so kids at Dartmouth College — who may or may not be getting class credit for attending — O'Malley, a buff man with bright-blue eyes, rolls up his sleeves in a vague RFK way and prowls the room with a microphone before uttering a chestnut that receives some titters: "I have a confession to make. I actually like politicians."
Later, he proudly tells me he wrote the line himself. This statement, just six weeks after the end of what O'Malley calls a political Summer of Repudiation, is why many detractors have written off his seemingly plausible — good-looking, better record — candidacy for president 100 days before the Iowa caucus. The people don't want a technocrat, someone who has built bridges, both literally and metaphorically — they want someone who is going to burn the mother to the ground. The chattering class says he's boring. And it's true he has a wonky side that can lead him down a road of dryness best characterized by a deadly speech at the 2012 Democratic Convention. The Associated Press recently described the Democratic race as a two-person contest. The irony is that on the personal side, O'Malley can be more entertaining than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders combined. He tries to hide it, but he's done some things. His band opened for the Pogues. He and his wife do a version of "Fairytale of New York." He sometimes travels with his guitar, which, depending on your dating history, is either excellent or a deal-breaker. On a recent swing through New York, he munched a grotty Penn Station sandwich and remarked with a puckish smile, "I give my best speeches as eulogies." Which makes sense because, in person, O'Malley comes across as a cockeyed optimist filtered through Irish fatalism.
But alas, Martin O'Malley is still languishing somewhere between asterisk and three percent in Iowa. So why should we care? Well, first, it's not impossible that the handsome man with a guitar could be a nice gender and generational counterpoint for Hillary. O'Malley endorsed her in 2008, and in the cavalcade of e-mails Clinton was recently forced to release, there was one about O'Malley from 2010 to a mutual friend, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski: "How's our friend, Martin, doing? I know he has a rematch when he should be reelected by acclamation for steering the ship of state so well. Pls give him my best wishes."
The other reason is O'Malley has actually governed for 15 years, running a city and then a state. Baltimore's violent-crime rate drastically declined under O'Malley, and as Maryland's governor, he eliminated the death penalty, passed significant gun-control legislation and signed gay marriage into law in a Southern border state. Sanders and Clinton talk a good game on these issues, but their actual executive experience is limited to Sanders' term as mayor of Burlington, Vermont. Before Obama, experience was something that mattered. And there's O'Malley's age (the Democratic bench runs old and not deep): At 52, he is 15 years younger for a party that has always depended on young voters to counteract the GOP geriatrics. . .
But his fiery self, an Irish-American cliché but true, only comes out after the canned remarks end and he's mingling with a beer in hand. One punter asks him about urban unemployment, and O'Malley eagerly nods. "If we don't get the city jobs," he says, "we can't be surprised when they pick up stones and start throwing them." . .
The placing of the Yamaha acoustic in the back closet marked a line of demarcation in O'Malley's reputation as a politician. Before, he was the boy mayor fighting crime on the drug corners of Baltimore. Then he became the policy-obsessed governor worried about polluted oyster beds and equal pay for women. The thing is, both sides existed before and after the rumors — they just became accentuated, and the man who was once seen as a bright young up-and-comer in American politics began to be dismissed as a stiff in a blue suit.
"There's always been a battle between the Martin I know and the dry, clinical policy guy he can often be," says Steve Kearney, a longtime friend and political aide. "We've had many, many discussions about it." Kearney pauses and laughs. "The thing about him running for president is this is the real Martin. He's having more fun than anyone else." . .
O'Malley was thinking of jumping into the race, but in a 60 percent black city, his aides told him, it would be political suicide. O'Malley ended up running anyway. "I realized that saying I wouldn't run because I'm white is like saying the electorate couldn't fairly consider the candidacy because they are black," he recalls. "And I became repulsed and ashamed that I had let myself think like that."
According to Kearney, O'Malley got in at seven percent, but 88 days later, he was elected mayor. The year before his election, Baltimore saw 315 murders, comparable to 3,500 in a year in New York City. He went through a string of police commissioners and relied on consultants like Jack Maple, one of the architects of Rudy Giuliani's broken-windows crime policy earlier in the decade, and began arresting everyone who was breaking the law. And when I say everyone, I mean 100,000 arrests in a city of 673,000 in 1999. But crime dropped. Under O'Malley, Baltimore's decade-long string of 300-plus murders a year ended. Violent crime plummeted 41 percent. . .
Despite not holding any office, O'Malley flew back from a planned trip to Ireland, where he was going to give paid speeches, and walked the streets of Baltimore. He said it was the least he could do.
"I walked into this big crowd of people, and I heard this young voice shout at me, 'Hey, O'Malley,'" he recalls. "I look up at this guy in a tank-top T-shirt, and he points at me, and the crowd looks over like, 'Uh-oh.' For the first time in 15 years, I didn't have any executive protection, and he shouts, 'You know what I've always liked about you? Your heart — you never lost it.'" . .
At the first Democratic debate, Anderson Cooper cited the arrest numbers and wondered aloud why Americans would choose to elect such a man as their president. O'Malley responded that the Baltimore he inherited was "the most violent, addicted and abandoned city in America." But it was his campaign's first introduction on the national stage, and O'Malley admits the question was "a kick in the teeth."
Some long-term residents like Nowlin, who spoke at O'Malley's campaign announcement, have no time for the Anderson Coopers of the world. "They're using revisionist history," Nowlin said. "They don't have any idea how horrible it was in Baltimore. Anderson Cooper wasn't here back then." He let out a sad laugh. "But Martin O'Malley was." . .
"Every day, we worked to improve police and community relations," he says. "And if we hadn't, I would not have been re-elected with over 88 percent of the vote, nor would I have received such strong support from Baltimore city when I ran for governor, especially in the parts of Baltimore that saw the biggest changes in terms of open-air drug markets and open-air drug dealing."
The issue rankles his judge wife just as much. "It's just a lack of facts," says Katie O'Malley. "People voted for him twice. He got re-elected in a majority African-American city two times, because people wanted him to crack down on crime. And any kind of crime — crime leading to violent crime. Whether they were just smoking marijuana, or whether they were on the streets with an open container. The crime was happening in these majority African-American neighborhoods, and people voted for him because they said, 'We want our neighborhoods back.'"
Martin O'Malley tries to keep his temper in check, but also wants you to know it's there. "It never ceases to surprise me how readily dismissive white liberal people can be of the opinions of black people, when they express it in their vote," he says, taking a long pull on his beer.
Less than an hour later, we disembark in Baltimore, and O'Malley bumps into former VP candidate and Democrat outcast Joseph Lieberman, who says in passing, "Keep doing what you're doing." As O'Malley walks to get a dinner consisting of meatballs and a cheeseburger, he wrinkles his brow. "Is that good?" . .
For all his talk of Democrat civility and hope contrasted with the Trumps and Cruzes of the world, O'Malley must go on the attack if he wants any Democratic voters to give him a look. His people would say Democratic voters had to meet him before he could start attacking their icons. But O'Malley needs to push — after all, he's held issues longer and stronger and actually got things done.
He starts the shift on October 24th, when he speaks at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, before thousands of Democratic activists, with the Iowa caucus now only 100 days away. Clinton brought Katy Perry, and Sanders brought buses full of students. O'Malley? He's sandwiched in the middle, his supporters loud but in the cheap seats. He appears jacketless and starts dry in his dreaded wonk voice and can't seem to decide whether to roll up his sleeves or let them dangle. But he speaks with anger about taking America back from the NRA and ending the carnage of gun violence. The most important plea is for the country to step forward and leave the Clinton age behind. At the same time, O'Malley gets in a dig at Sanders' evolving gun-control position and Clinton's own policy realignments:
"In 100 days, the people of Iowa will decide. New leadership, or the same old battles? Actions, or words? ... A weather vane shifts in the wind, effective leaders do not."
I notice, for the first time in a week, he'd left out the "I like politicians" line. O'Malley leaves the stage to thunderous applause, much of it from supporters of his opponents. On Monday, he goes on the offensive, saying Clinton has changed her position on everything except coddling bankers. The wonk is letting it rip and has a smile on his face. Afterward, one hopeful poll shows a slight uptick in his numbers, from three to five percent, but his chances remain smaller than the font you're reading.
But maybe it doesn't matter. People are listening to Martin O'Malley's song. And they are not bored.'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-martin-omalley-could-be-the-future-of-the-democratic-party-20151106?page=9
= new reply since forum marked as read
and getting a good reception on FB.
'Maryland developed the best education system in the nation under his tenure. From what I can tell his governing critics lack details and have used gross manipulation to draw unfavorable narratives.'
There is a fair number of trollish comments. 
Another, from 'my' MO'M FB group: 'Excellent! I think this is the best "who is he" I've seen.'