At least in my humble opinion as a Marylander.

HRC picking a white male liberal from a northeast state.

It's not like it would be the craziest thing she could do.

But I hope she considers Julian Castro, and I think it is quite possible that she will select him.

He's the one I won't have to hold my nose to vote for in the NJ Primary.

If he makes it that long (a year from tomorrow) - I'm voting for him.

If he doesn't - I'll wait to the G.E. - and vote D.

I'm not giving Sanders or Clinton a 'mandate'.

What is it about Sanders that you don't like?

Why are you using the plural? And I asked because of what the poster said.

the concept of a discussion board.

Notice you ask a question and expect and answer. I ask a question and you chide me for speaking out of turn. Wonder who really needs the lesson in public message boards?

In fact, Bernie tops my list but I know that he can't win. I'd vote for O'Malley because he's the more pragmatic choice.

I can't stand HRC; she ain't getting my choice.

Sadly, she'll likely win MD, even with O'Malley's name on the ballot because she's probably more popular here than he is, but I'll cast a protest vote because I simply cannot stand voting for her.

as more likely to win. I'll vote for O'Malley in the primary.

I will vote for Hillary if she gets the Democratic nomination. The direction of the Supreme Court is too important to not vote or cast a protest vote, imo.

I can cast a protest vote against HRC if she's the nominee, but perhaps we'll see how things go. I feel that it won't be as simple as that, even in MD. For some reason, I think this is going to be a tough campaign for the Democrats.

I work at HUD and just receive word that the SCOTUS is attempting to overturn a major provision of the housing discrimination act.

This should not be surprising to anyone.

And thank you for your post, FSogol. Unfortunately, we have to be realistic. We are ALL voting for a Supreme Court picker. THAT. IS. IT. THAT is what it boils down to.

I've also noticed that many Hillary-supporters tend to be pragmatic - supporting her alright, but MORE than happy to vote for Bernie Sanders or whoever else might wind up winning our party's nomination. I'm certainly one of those. I would be DELIGHTED to vote for Bernie, and support him wholeheartedly! It won't be any hold-yer-nose-and-vote thing for me, if MY first choice doesn't get the nod! I also notice such pragmatism is somewhat more difficult to find within the "Not Hillary" camp. I find that troublesome.

PLEASE GUYS - my DU brothers and sisters - please consider the recollections of one who's old enough to remember when people who were on fire for Gene McCarthy back in 1968 refused to vote for Hubert Humphrey who won the Democratic nomination - just because it was more important to stay home and pout than get out and vote for the team. Or take one for the team. Or however you word it. Because the result was - Humphrey got beaten by RICHARD NIXON AND SPIRO AGNEW. The DIRTIEST Dirty Duo back then (that was before reagan/bush and bush/quayle and bush/cheney, of course).

I'll make this point again. And I say this as one who supports Hillary Clinton but who also is really LOVING Bernie Sanders and is very willing to stand with him if he's our nominee. I fear I see too much rigidity among those who support her Democratic challengers. There are too many on that side who insist they'll stay home (and pout) rather than vote for Clinton if she's the nominee. WE CAN'T AFFORD THAT. If I can compromise (and I am EAGER to make such a compromise if it comes to that), I would hope they'd come around to that same compromise too. And what concerns me is - I don't see a lot of that coming back from that particular arena.

Does he have a template? Every two weeks he churns out another one.

O'Malley remains popular in Maryland and even in Baltimore. As Hogan mismanages and cuts education in Maryland, everyone will remember O'Malley more fondly. Blaming O'Malley for Browns crappy campaign is getting old too.

I still can't abide the new governor.

People are feeling Hogan fatigue already. Hogan is cutting money for schools and putting money into prisons. Brown ran a terrible and passive campaign; he was not half the campaigner that O'Malley is.

O'Malley was a successful mayor of a very difficult, diverse, and crime-ridden city. He was a successful governor who made one of the best states even better. He was not a perfect executive, but he was a damn good one, considering the challenges he was faced with. The things he accomplished, with the support of the Maryland legislature, are amazing and numerous. Anyone open to learn can read this exhaustive list in the O'Malley Group on this forum.

There are always things to find fault with, even in the case of successful executives. Governors will always have mixed reactions from their electorate, as presidents have.

He even had the guts to raise taxes progressively in order to rebuild infrastructure, improve schools, and provide better health care for all. Raising taxes and fees made him unpopular among those most affected (cigarette smokers, top 15% of income earners, and gas guzzlers), but it made public schools and services better in Maryland. I'll take the taxes any day, as long as they go to the common good.

Why do I prefer O'Malley to the other candidates? So many reasons, so little time... But here are a few:

I prefer his religiously grounded moral principles of social justice. Though affiliated with no religion myself, I can appreciate where he is coming from. He is a Pope Francis Catholic without the war on women and gays.

I prefer his view that solving economic problems will not be enough. We have to change the way we live together and work together with others. We have to learn to negotiate, both with our fellow Americans and with "like-minded" people abroad.

I prefer his emphasis on pragmatism and common sense. I believe there is too much fighting over left and right. We need problem-solving. We need to "play well with others" who disagree with us in order to work together for common goals.

I prefer O'Malley's youth and energy. Being elderly myself, I understand the effects of aging, no matter how healthy a person may be at the present time. It is tough being president. Campaigning is exhausting as well. Moreover, one of the consequences of aging is both positive and negative: You don't give a damn about what other people think.

I prefer the fact that O'Malley calls himself a democrat. That means a lot to me. I regard both socialism and capitalism as economic systems. As dependent as democracy is on economics in many ways, it depends even more on changes in attitude toward openness, respect for the dignity of each unique person, habits of dialogue and communication, scientific method, and rejection of authoritarian tendencies in our culture and nature.

I prefer O'Malley's inclusiveness and belief in the dignity of each and every human being. I like it when he talks about compassion, generosity, and love. I like the fact that he realizes how awful things are right now for most of us, yet still believes that we have reason to hope if we listen to our "better angels," what is good in our human nature.

I prefer the company of O'Malley's supporters. They are more in sync with my personality and temperament. I dislike authoritarian types, who try to bully others into seeing things their way (or the highway). I have met few O'Malley supporters I wouldn't enjoy having a cup of coffee with.

ETA: I am a Marylander who likes Martin O'Malley.

Great explanation for your support O'Malley. He really is the inclusive, moral, progressive candidate running for president. I can't imagine any other candidate making the argument he did about giving sanctuary to child refugees.

His stand on that issue was a perfect example of moral principle and compassion.

listening to attacks on all of his opponents!

I wish you could give a seminar for those Democrats who focus on tearing down other candidates rather than explaining the virtues of the one they support. I like Bernie best, but even if he can get nominated and elected, I fear he might get kneecapped, as Carter was, by both Republicans AND Democrats. Your analysis has persuaded me to look more closely at O'Malley. The fact that bigtree is also a huge O'Malley supporter is also provoking my interest, since I have a lot of respect for bigtree's heart and mind.

Thanks again for taking the time to make a case for your candidate instead of just tearing down all the others!

Interesting & to the point and you didn't have to shred the dignity of another candidate to raise the dignity of yours.
Thank you. Made me want to actually read what you had to say.

Clearly, by your post, Martin OMalley has the concern & credentials to be a serious player in 2016.
Well done.

and/or a way to respond to him; couldn't.

in the 60s. Brown could not capitalize on that because he was a weak candidate. Methinks they are projecting.

doesn't have the social-economic record to match Sanders. Besides his rhetoric - at the end of the day he can't be distinguished from the establishment as Sanders can.

Baltimore is baggage for him.

A Veep shot / a compromise candidate - (if the Clinton-Sanders factions become stale-mated)/ a 2020 run - those are his options.

Baltimore has been baggage for every mayor who tried to govern that city. O'Malley did his best. He had to attend the funerals of ten Baltimore policemen -- half of them black and half of them white. He monitored the police, took feedback from the community, and lowered the murder and violent crime rate.

O'Malley has experience, working with community groups -- black and white -- to solve crime, poverty, and race issues in a major city. That makes his mayoral executive experience superior to that of Sanders, in my opinion. Getting something done with extremely difficult conditions is, in my mind, of greater merit than getting something done in a city with little or no racial tension, a low crime rate, and much less poverty.

You prefer Sanders. That's great. I am not you. There is more to a candidate than his positions. I prefer O'Malley, and that is also great.

Neither of us is going to vote for Scott Walker, a much less successful governor than Martin O'Malley.

ungovernable city. It has an myriad of problems that existed decades before O'Malley entered office. I work for HUD and my life's work has centered on poverty, unemployment, homelessness...all the social and economic ills that often plague cities like Baltimore. These cities are ungovernable. There's very little one can do because the issues are much more complex. They've become endemic. You're dealing with intergenerational poverty and people become hopeless. Industries leave the city and take valuable jobs with them. That destroys the communities and the people residing in them. There are so many problems--each one of them intertwined with the next.

As much as I love and admire Bernie Sanders, I guarantee you that neither he nor anyone else could've fixed everything wrong with Baltimore in a short 4- or 8-year period.

That's like expecting President Obama to swoop down to Chicago and cure crime, poverty, joblessness, homelessness, etc. These issues are far too complex.

We need to start thinking much more critically than we do.

I don't have all the answers. None of us do; however, mayors can do things to lure investment back to the city. And Baltimore had been turning around. Even in Sandtown and Winchester neighborhoods--some of the worst communities imaginable--progress was being made. However, the housing and economic crises set progress back some, and once again, communities fell into despair. Now, that's going to take a long time to repair and there's no short-term solution.

But to blame one person or one set of circumstances? That's quite unfair. These issues are far too complex.

The real villains responsible for the devastation of Baltimore are the hundreds of companies that have outsourced manufacturing and other jobs for the last forty or fifty years.

Martin O'Malley made a heroic effort to reduce the death toll ultimately caused by high unemployment, poverty, and hopelessness. To his credit, despite anger and resentment from some in the black community, many lives were saved.

None of our candidates can walk on water, and none besides O'Malley took on the impossible job of reducing violent crime in Baltimore. He was elected overwhelmingly by a black majority population two times (91% and 87%) because he promised to do just that.

O'Malley loved and still does love Baltimore. He knew that whatever he did, it would please some and offend others. But he did save lives.

is attributed to some person or policies. It's my understanding that the single most important predictor of crime rates is demographics. In particular, the number in the population of unmarried males between the ages of 16 and around 24. When that group's numbers increase, crime increases. When that group's number decreases, crime decreases. Increases and declines in crime rates are easily attributed to the wrong things.

Unemployment leads to poverty. Poverty is most associated with crime.

Where do you get these numbers from? Or, is this a round-about way of blaming single black mothers, yet again?

Show me some statistics and proof. Otherwise, keep your racist assumptions to yourself.

I don't remember where it was published or who the author was.

Only to respond to your gross accusation of "racism", I'm not going to embark on a time-consuming internet search to try to find my original source, or one like it. You are apparently a person who is content to draw faulty conclusions from incomplete information and to make careless and irresponsible assumptions about perfect strangers.

However, for your edification, here are a few random returns to a search for "crime and age demographics"

http://www.sociology.org.uk/pblsdca.pdf

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/march97/crime3.html

http://www.cjcj.org/uploads/cjcj/documents/Does_age.pdf

The first link, from sociology.org.uk, reports that:

are, by far, the greatest predictors of crime.

Age may fall in there somewhat, but you'll see that age corresponds as "working aged" adults.

With fewer jobs opportunities, the probability of crime increases. But, we also need to be clear about correlation and causation:

Unemployment, poverty, etc. are highly associated (read: correlated) with crime but not always the CAUSE of crime.

Second, we need to be clear about the types of crime committed:

Unemployment, poverty is associated with higher property crimes, such as theft, not necessarily violent crimes.

Sources:

http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=parkplace
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/economics/job-market/bindler/bindler-paper17nov14.pdf

Most recent analysis conducted by the Congressional Research Service: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40726.pdf

and it doesn't take a genius to cipher it out, even without a formal study.

I see what you're trying to assert here and it IS racist! I will call racism out when I see it!

he was and is a problem solver, which he demonstrated for 16+ years in Maryland. He knows how to fix things, not just to talk about policy and law.

Martin O'Malley

1. Ended death penalty in Maryland
2. Prevented fracking in Maryland and put regulations in the way to prevent next GOP Gov Hogan fom easily allowing fracking.
3. Provided health insurance for 380,000
4. Reduced infant mortality to an all time low.
5. Provided meals to thousands of hungry children and moved toward a goal for eradicating childhood hunger.
6. Enacted a $10.10 living wage and a $11. minimum wage for State workers.
7. Supporter the Dream Act
8. Cut income taxes for 86% of Marylanders (raised taxes on the rich).
9. Reformed Maryland’s tax code to make it more progressive.
10. Enacted some of the nation’s most comprehensive reforms to protect homeowners from foreclosure.

Mother Jones magazine called him the best candidate on environmental issues.
Article here:
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/12/martin-omalley-longshot-presidential-candidate-and-real-climate-hawk

and it passed. I am not gay, but I run with the crowd that believes the government does not have the right to legislate who each of us can or cannot love and marry. For a government to do so is raw discrimination no different than what used to exist against African-Americans and Caucasians.

I have always thought O'Malley was a great governor, and I loved living in the blue state of Maryland during his tenure as Governor.

I have always been against the death penalty, and I swelled with pride when I saw it abolished in Maryland.

We now have a Republican Governor because so many Dems stayed at home, and the last two weeks of the election there was a flood of Republican money thrown into heavy-duty advertising 24-7. Brown made the mistake of not responding to them (but it would have been a full-time job to do so).

O'Malley would make a great Vice President for Bernie Sanders. So would Ms. Warren.

Should Hillary be the primary winner, I will vote for her. But I certainly do not believe she is as liberal as many here think. She is more than capable of compromising with Republicans in ways true liberals will not like in the same manner as did Bill Clinton (the originator of the term "Third Way&quot , as well as President Obama.

Maryland will be switching back to paper ballots in the 2016 election, and I find that very smart. Additionally, we will be able to audit the count should there be a problem.

Sam

Shouldn't it be the other way around? O'Malley has much more executive experience over a longer period of time. He also can boast a long record of accomplishments. And unlike Bernie who I do love, O'Malley presided over a much more diverse electorate and confronted much more complex challenges than Bernie. This is a not a slight against Bernie, but Vermont is much more politically, racially and ideologically homogenous. It is therefore easier to reach consensus and is perhaps one of the reasons why it is more acceptable for Bernie to self identify as a socialist. On the other hand, however, O'Malley has had to contend with a much more heterogeneous population. And believe it or not, Maryland is not as politically/ideologically liberal or Democratic as people think. We've had Republicans dominate governorships and the state legislature over periods of time. It is not unusual to witness partisan flips, and depending on turnout, Maryland can easily become more of a purple than blue state. More important, however, is that Maryland is not as liberal as people assume.

I also really like Bernie. I do not believe O'Malley can garner the type of popularity Bernie is beginning to generate.

Yes, Maryland is pretty liberal. We have pockets of deeply Republican territories but they have less of a populace in those counties. Hogan is the third Republican governor in Maryland in 50 years. He won because Dems stayed home.

I don't see Maryland ever becoming a purple state. As far as Hogan goes, I doubt he wins a second term. He p*ssed me off right off the bat:

http://www.cbf.org/news-media/newsroom/2015/01/22/cbf-sad-day-for-maryland

and then he refused to fund education in Maryland. That one is REALLY going make him popular.

Sam

dying off and the New Guard that we are seeing may be pushing policies leftward. But I also think that we shouldn't take the Republicans for granted. They are still a formidable force.

AND...the some wealthy white liberals and moderate Democrats don't seem to have problems supporting Republicans re: taxes. I was shocked to learn that many of them did in MoCo where I live. But it shouldn't be surprising because they also supported Connie Morella for a number of years and also didn't have a problem supporting Ehrlich.

Most of the extremely wealthy people I have come in contact with lean to the right. Example: when discussing education with a group of people all of whom were to the right (all in the same family), the subject of education came up. One of the younger men asked, "Why should I pay higher taxes to education other people's children? I don't have any children in public schools." Several people nodded their heads in agreement. I responded, "I don't have any children in public schools either, but I am more than willing to pay higher taxes to educate other people's children. Otherwise, one day when I am pretty old, I will wake up to find my world is run by morons." No one agreed with me. I also mentioned this Country would not be able to compete with other countries that did invest in education for its children. This didn't change anyone's mind either. To me, these people are simply self-oriented to the point they do not care about others. Many of them have a lot of money because they hoard it, not spend it.

I disagree that the Republicans are still a formidable force, except for the fact they will go to great lengths to win, whatever it takes. As far as truly attracting new voters, they are goners. Most of the policies discussed today are so out of touch it is unbelievable. They are trying to take us back to the 40s and 50s.

We do agree on one thing: I could not stand Ehrlich. Michael Steele either.

Sam

O'Malley has a progressive dream list of accomplishments. He's done more for progressive policy than Sanders and Clinton together. Neither of them suceeded in ending the death penalty, enacting SSM, raising minimum wage, enacting strong gun control laws, enacting DREAM Act. If you care about progressive policy accomplishments and not just rhetoric or votes for bills that die in Congress, O'Malley is the obvious choice.

O'Malley left office with over 60% approval rating.

Even some ReThugs admitted he did a commendable job.

That approval rating may have started to tick down at the end due to people upset over taxes, but overall--O'Malley enjoyed a pretty high approval.

Maryland's did not like Anthony Brown, but that's because of Anthony Brown who was a sorry-ass candidate. He was worse that Martha Coakley and in the same boat as Kathleen Kennedy who sucked as a candidate.

Had little to do with O'Malley other than he chose him.

and I/we surely miss him now, considering the 'clown' we're stuck with. Jail not Education, for one thing: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/18/1385712/-Baltimore-governor-says-no-to-11-6-mil-for-education-and-yes-to-30-mil-for-children-s-prison

There were no such problems when O'Malley was governor.

While Clinton might be my first choice for the nomination, I will take O'Malley any day over Sanders, Chaffee, and Webb!

For starters, the GOP did a good job of pillorying the so-called rain tax. The whole party shares the blame for not responding effectively to that.

Second, our party just didn't turn out all across America. Meanwhile the Republicans showed up in droves. I don't see how Anthony Brown can be blamed for that.

Third, independents swung heavily GOP in all races in the final weeks of the campaign, as Republican lies convinced people that ebola was a real and imminent threat to their families.

"Bogus Conservative Media Talking Point: Martin O'Malley 'Taxed The Rain'"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/10/bogus-conservative-media-talking-point-martin-o/203935

Excerpt:

I have no time at all for sweeping pronouncements of the kind Enten is indulging in here. Ranking among potential presidential nominees doesn't serve as proof that Marylanders somehow reject O'Malley the governor.

I used to think of FiveThirtyEight as fair and reliable. I wonder about stuff like this.

is still using Diebold electronic voting machines. These two reasons helped to elect a
Republican governor.

Mid-year elections always have much lower turnouts. Methinks this fivethirtyeight author is full of shit.

to learn from the unfortunate results -- time, after time after time.

In fact, it was reported as being among the worst turnout of recent midterm elections.