2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIf it was Martin O'Malley who was in the lead ahead of Bernie at Convention, would we find it easier
as a party to unite behind him?
Speaking for myself, if he had run a clean campaign and won legitimately, I would still have been heartbroken over not getting Bernie, but I wouldn't feel like I am voting against the Repubs via the Dem the same way as I would with Hillary if she gets the nomination.
djean111
(14,255 posts)That's because you would not be voting against the GOP via a Democrat. The Third way worships money instead of ideology. That's the only difference.
Skinner
(63,645 posts)...and quietly dropped out when it was clear he wouldn't win. People like that are easy to like.
If there were an alternate reality in which Martin O'Malley won the nomination, I have no doubt that along the way he would have slammed his opponent(s) for various reasons (some legit and some not), pissed off plenty of people, been painted as an establishment tool, and had a number of surrogates who said truly offensive shit. In other words: in the alternate universe where Martin O'Malley won the nomination, he would have done everything necessary in order to win, and his opponent(s) would have done everything in their power to stop him. I suspect many people would not like that Martin O'Malley.
Of course, this is all hypothetical. So sure, why not? Martin O'Malley would have won the nomination that was both clean and legitimate, and people would have been totally cool with it. After all, he's Martin O'Malley -- that nice man who everyone likes.
Peacetrain
(22,878 posts)and precinct captain...You are exactly right.. and as I have written many many times.. if a person cannot win the primary/caucus of the party they are running in.. there is no way they would have ever won the general election.. there is no magical things that would have have been if only such and such would have won.. That is why I believe in the party first.. candidates come and go.. but the party marches on and gets it done..
GreenPartyVoter
(72,381 posts)soured me somewhat. Probably true of most candidates. But I guess my query was really to get a sense of if people are "Not Hillary, others OK" or "Bernie only."
Armstead
(47,803 posts)When he was in the race, many Sanders supporters were much more supportive of him and his policies overall.
Wasn't all hearts and flowers of course. He did say some things that cheesed Sanders people off ("we don't need a socialist" and there were disagreements over policies among supporters. .
But overall the tone was much different between the Sanders and O'Malley "camps" because he was basically positive and policy oriented. he also represented a true "middle course" that reflected many of the positions of Sanders in a more traditional framework. Sanders people felt much more comfortable with him as a competitor and would have been more comfortable if he had done better in the primary.
Skinner
(63,645 posts)The "positive and policy oriented" O'Malley is also the candidate that won 0.5% in the Iowa caucuses. Of course we all like him -- he was never a threat.
We can all imagine in our minds an alternate reality in which Martin O'Malley somehow became a serious contender for the nomination while also remaining "positive and policy oriented" and maintaining the goodwill of supporters of other candidates. But that doesn't mean that's how it would have actually happened here in the real world. In fact, I think the abundant evidence here on DU and elsewhere strongly suggests otherwise.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)outdistance Martin O'Malley so decisively and so quickly.
We all remember the O'Malley who never rose too high...who was never a threat. But we should think back and recall the Martin O'Malley who was talked about as a future presidential candidate for 15 years, going back to when he was mayor of Baltimore. O'Malley had the right look and he had the right record. And a lot of people thought he would be president some day.
Clinton and Sanders both offered something that the voters wanted more and so they became the two finalists. Given who their competition was, and O'Malley's strengths, it was an impressive accomplishment for both of them.
Raine1967
(11,589 posts)I have no more to add to this little bit of reality based on the backdrop of a hypothetical.
It's politics.
BootinUp
(47,179 posts)bigtree
(86,005 posts)...hopefully you'll come down from your angry cloud and focus back on the real opposition to our party's progressive agenda.
monmouth4
(9,709 posts)cloud. My party's progressive agenda has hardly survived and she would be the worst to help it along. She is such a poor choice and the progressive agenda is a joke.
bigtree
(86,005 posts)...admittedly not as strident as some in her progressive agenda, but not as resistant to it as she's been portrayed by Sanders and his support.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)Orsino
(37,428 posts)That's like being one of the least anti-Jet among the Sharks.
aikoaiko
(34,183 posts)BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)<The drug war began it, certainly, but the stake through the heart of police procedure in Baltimore was MARTIN OMALLEY3. He destroyed police work in some real respects. Whatever was left of it when he took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart. Everyone thinks Ive got a hard-on for Marty because we battled over The Wire, whether it was bad for the city, whether wed be filming it in Baltimore. But its been years, and I mean, thats over. I shook hands with him on the train last year and we buried it. And, hey, if he's the Democratic nominee, Im going to end up voting for him. Its not personal and I admire some of his other stances on the death penalty and gay rights. But to be honest, what happened under his watch as Baltimores mayor was that he wanted to be governor. And at a certain point, with the crime rate high and with his promises of a reduced crime rate on the line, he put no faith in real policing.
Originally, early in his tenure, OMalley brought Ed Norris in as commissioner and Ed knew his business. Hed been a criminal investigator and commander in New York and he knew police work. And so, for a time, real crime suppression and good retroactive investigation was emphasized, and for the Baltimore department, it was kind of like a fat man going on a diet. Just leave the French fries on the plate and you lose the first ten pounds. The initial crime reductions in Baltimore under OMalley were legit and OMalley deserved some credit.
But that wasnt enough. OMalley needed to show crime reduction stats that were not only improbable, but unsustainable without manipulation. And so there were people from City Hall who walked over Norris and made it clear to the district commanders that crime was going to fall by some astonishing rates. Eventually, Norris got fed up with the interference from City Hall and walked, and then more malleable police commissioners followed, until indeed, the crime rate fell dramatically. On paper.
How? There were two initiatives. First, the department began sweeping the streets of the inner city, taking bodies on ridiculous humbles, mass arrests, sending thousands of people to city jail, hundreds every night, thousands in a month. They actually had police supervisors stationed with printed forms at the city jail forms that said, essentially, you can go home now if you sign away any liability the city has for false arrest, or you can not sign the form and spend the weekend in jail until you see a court commissioner. And tens of thousands of people signed that form.>
<The city eventually got sued by the ACLU and had to settle, but OMalley defends the wholesale denigration of black civil rights to this day. Never mind what it did to your jury pool: now every single person of color in Baltimore knows the police will lie and that's your jury pool for when you really need them for when you have, say, a felony murder case. But what it taught the police department was that they could go a step beyond the manufactured probable cause, and the drug-free zones and the humbles the targeting of suspects through less-than-constitutional procedure. Now, the mass arrests made clear, we can lock up anybody, we don't have to figure out who's committing crimes, we don't have to investigate anything, we just gather all the bodies everybody goes to jail. And yet people were scared enough of crime in those years that OMalley had his supporters for this policy, council members and community leaders who thought, Theyre all just thugs.>
aikoaiko
(34,183 posts)I said lite because he has no gravitas.
ecstatic
(32,727 posts)Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)I'll stick with Hillz.
monmouth4
(9,709 posts)emulatorloo
(44,173 posts)You may have forgotten it.
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)He didn't oppose my civil rights until 2013
He didn't call young people of colour "superpredators"
He wasn't paid to fill for-profit prisons to the brim
He didn't take $650,000 for a speech for a big corrupting bank
He didn't vote for the Iraq War
He didn't turn Libya into a stronghold for ISIS
Or do the same with Iraq and Syria
He didn't ignore Obama's express orders to ignore advice from the war-hawk Blumenthal
Need I go on?
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Yes, he is corporate, but not a despicable Bushco ally in Democratic clothing.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)O'Malley's never had a private sector job in his life.
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)I think he follows supply side, Chicago school of economics thinking, from what I have heard from him. I think he is more neo-liberal economically.
I think he would be received better by those on the left as the front runner.
Response to PowerToThePeople (Reply #25)
Post removed
Recursion
(56,582 posts)nc4bo
(17,651 posts)I say that with complete honesty.
He was pushed out the same way they wanted to push out Sanders. Definitely got in the way of someone's plans.
BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)Unless you mean getting less than 1% of the vote in the Iowa caucus pushed him out. You can't raise money to have a viable candidacy when you have no support in the polls. During the final quarter of 2015, he raised only about a million dollars (excluding a $500K loan) compared to Hillary and Bernie raising over $30 million each.
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)He could have used the media's help but Trump sucked the air out the room.
Once upon a time, media actually served a noble purpose by giving fair and equal coverage to all the candidates.
I bet there are thousands if not millions of people who will say, "Martin who?"
BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)But the media has never given equal attention to what look to be marginal candidates, even in the days when there were still some standards in journalism. Lesser known politicians have to make a big enough showing in the polls in Iowa or New Hampshire to be considered viable candidates nationally. O'Malley didn't pass that test. I agree that there are millions of people who have no idea who he is, but I don't think it is on the media to carpet bomb the public with information on every candidate. There were how many, 16 on the Republican side?
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)I probably would have voted for him in GE, even if he wasn't my 'perfect' candidate. Clinton's nasty campaign makes it impossible.
Tarc
(10,476 posts)but it would have been rather muted, compared to the anti-Hillary vitriol.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)As far as I know, he's never greased the skids of weapons deals after getting donations from the country and weapons manufacturer. As far as I know, he's never treated state secrets with less care than I give my photo album. As far as I know, he's never used super pacs to buy superdelegates and launder cash for his campaign.
And I do know that he didn't vote to support a war in Iraq.
So yes.
JudyM
(29,265 posts)I will not volunteer 1 minute of my time for Clinton, now that I have learned what she has done.
LexVegas
(6,091 posts)Xyzse
(8,217 posts)Need I say more?
Beacool
(30,250 posts)We can hypothesize about various candidates, but the reality is that we have two candidates who are still in the race and only one of them will be the nominee.
BTW, Hillary is winning legitimately. Democratic state rules have been in effect for years. I heard a lot of complaints about closed primaries, particularly after NY. IMO, they should all be closed primaries. Why should Independents have a say on who should be the Democratic nominee? If they want to vote for a Democrat, then join the party and have skin in the game.