Most voters aren't paying attention to the candidates like on DU, and there hasn't been any debates to get his face and name out there. Although I support Bernie, I'd like to hear more from O'M.

degree.

It's the reason Hillary is avoiding debating them both. Their ideas are great, and she does not want the voters to hear them.

Really really biased.

But I do like O'Malley and would be happy to vote for him in the GE.

News to me.

If you have an issue with that, perhaps you should take it up with the voters. Perhaps you could tell them how stupid they're being in not appreciating your candidate?

One reason is 'circumstances,' challenging 2 nationally-known Dems, one of whom has the ear and power of Dem powers that be, who see their interest in keeping a competent, experienced Democratic candidate under wraps. (Fwiw, I suspect a major reason for the debate kerfuffle, few of them, ill-scheduled, is to keep Governor O'Malley 'under wraps.')

As he says, he's the only candidate with 15 years of successful executive experience, and he's continually bringing out plans to address critical issues of the day.

READ MY 15 GOALS TO REBUILD THE AMERICAN DREAM
We know what our country should look like when the American Dream is alive and well—find out how we get there.
https://martinomalley.com/

And look at DU. What the heck is it with the lack of interest in an otherwise compelling candidate.

I live in MD. People here either liked him or hated him with passion.

Those who didn't like him said he comes off like a spoiled brat, wise-ass, elitist, know-it-all pretty boy who has never done hard work in his life. And that doesn't play well in a lot of circles around here.

Just my thoughts.

I have seen some substantive critiques of his policies, but when I scratch the surface those arguments usually fail. Those are more an indication of "nobody's perfect" and it's tough to get every policy decision 100% correct. And in any policy change there are going to be losers (or at least people who perceive themselves to be on the losing end of the decision) and those people will be bitter, and tend to exaggerate the downsides of whatever it was.

But at least those are substantive arguments. The attitude you cite is just facepalm-worthy.

He didn't say "I have a plan..."

for persons who aspire to executive positions.

that's what happened.

most people have been busy with summer

my theories

1. not a lot of name recognition yet
2. m$m is doing everything they can to close out the four non anointed dems running
3. hillary wasserman schultz has undemocratized the debate process, again, to protect her candidate. so no debates to showcase positions
4. trump has sucked up a lot of attention from both sides, and since debbie would rather see a republican win than a progressive dem, she is delaying the debate schedule, giving the media not a lot to report on re dem activity. this leaves a lot of attention going to republicans
5. the little attention being given to dems is going to the endless hillary stuff....emails, benghazi committee bullshit, her constant remakes of herself.

all of the above can be remedied. and it is still fairly early.

That's one thing I think everyone on DU can agree on. If someone could only find a pin big enough to pop his ego.

"I'm very very wealth you know"

Didn't know much about him except the city he is the mayor for was in turmoil earlier this year. I thought, "No way, do I want him as my candidate" pretty much based on BLM and the perceived handling of death by cop in his city.

Reading his platform and listening to him, my impression of him has changed greatly. But I still have some reservations on civil rights issues under his leadership.

But I knew of Sanders and Warren in the senate and had heard him through the years. I was hoping for Warren, and I feel we got a good sub in Bernie.

O'Malley actually has a pretty shitty record of abusive policing in Baltimore

His career record is also a pretty solid third-way DLC New Democrat style centrist record until he decided to start posturing as a liberal trying to make a political brand out of it.

People probably pick up on all this.

Sanders isn't a shape shifter. Everybody knows exactly what we are getting with that Sanders. That authenticity is clearly part of his appeal.

I tend to share a suspicion that he may just be abspruced up DLC type.

This may sound strange, but he isn't sngry enough. I think Bernie has a fire in the belly thatvwe need to shake thing up.

Plus, I am kind of wary about what I've heard about Baltimore and his policing policies.

I do like many of his stated positions, and I'm trying to keep an open mind.

NOTHING 'third way' about these accomplishments.

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

Mother Jones magazine did not call him the best candidate on environmental issues.
Well clicking through to your link it doesn't say that anyway. Maybe you misread it.

When it came to fracking he sure didn't support people in Pennsylvania. He controlled a vote on the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and used his vote to rubber stamp fracking projects.

He has ties to the Wall Street bankers and fundraisers. He raised a lot of money from them while head of the Dem. Governors association.

He was invited to speak with The Third Way think tank in 2011 and they liked him so much they invited him back for a private meeting and press session in 2012.

He claims to be against the TPP but not too long ago he actually signed a letter to the President urging for stronger intellectual property rules in the agreement.

In Baltimore he pushed abusive, illegal, unconstitutional policing policies that destroyed thousands of innocent lives, by far mostly black people. The ACLU and NAACP had to join forces by filing a joint lawsuit against O'Malley to force him to cease these sickening policies of zero tolerance policing and mass arrests of black men. His policies contributed greatly to a culture of abusive, out of control, criminal behavior by police, and feelings of mistrust by the community.


That record really not what I prefer. If you combined his positive record it's really a mixed bag.

I think he seems like a one of those trojan horse candidate that seem great but when they get in office they throw us a few gifts but most of their agenda is to serve big business.

What I agree with you most about:

And being invited to give a warmly received speech to their members means nothing.

What a fool I've been!

I said I have an open mind and I like many of his positions and accomplishments.

But sorry, I do have a lurking suspicion of his Third Way ties and otehr factors.

Plus, to be perfectly honest, I don't think he's angry enough. By that I mean a clear sense of passion about the need to break through the complacency about the fundamentals of the system, which has been perpetuated for too long by the DMC "everything's fine we just need to elect Democrats instead of Republicans and make a few tweaks."

You may disagree. We're all allowed an opinion.

Is "limburger"! Boy that stuff stinks!

and brought shooting of suspect by the police to an all time low (it has since gone back up).
The double the dollars going to drug treatment and decriminalized marijuana. How many times has DU showed you the errors of your completely unsupported up statements?

You are aware that O'Malley expunged the records of people wrongly arrested and decriminalized marijuana. He closed Maryland's worst jail and reduced recidivism to record lows. He also made it illegal for the State to ask if applicants had be arrested. You always take the worst from a terrible high crime period and try to pretend it was O'Malley entire record. It was not. Citizens of Baltimore reelected O'Malley with higher levels of support each time he ran for office. The reason? He made the streets of Baltimore safer and the citizens rewarded him for it. If Maryland didn't have term limits, he'd still be Governor today.

You like to post that quote from Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, (former head) of the Baltimore City Branch of the NAACP, but you always seem to truncate this part:

The arrests from the O'Malley era were not expunged.

When O'Malley was mayor people could within 3 years of being arrested without a charge apply in writing to have the arrest expunged. But they were required to sign an agreement not to sue the city over the arrest.

Then in 2007 when O'Malley was governor, he signed a law to automatically expunging false arrests, but it was not retroactive.

So for all the false arrests under Mayor O'Malley, the survivors still needed to apply in writing to get their expungement.

On the bright side, the new law got rid of the rule that the person seeking expungement sign an agreement not to sue the city.

http://www.jotf.org/Portals/0/11-23-07%20-%20Sun%20-%20It%20is%20the%20law.pdf

So overall many many lives were still shattered by Martin O'Malleys record of unconstitutional, abusive policing. It contributed greatly to the climate of police terror that led to the the death of Freddy Grey and the riots.

So you see his record is a mixed bag.

Don't take my word for it.

Several well known people from Baltimore have spoken up to warn us.

It's not OK to steal years of people's lives away and then maybe give part of it back if they can figure out how to navigate your bureaucracy. How the hell are people are supposed to just know every time the expungement rules change? How many people were coerced into signing away their right to sue the city? How does any of that make it OK to sweep up thousands of people suspected of no crime, strip search them, humiliate them, give them a record, rob their chance of getting a job? How much earning potential was lost? How may families literally broken up? We may never know. The expungement doesn't really help people who were impoperly harassed or illegally searched on the street and possibly found in possession of of contraband.

O'Malley's policing policies had racist results. Almost all of this terroristic policing was directed at black men. Maybe that's why some people keep trying to justify it. Can you try picturing this happening to you or your kid and then think whether you would still defend it? Imagine: Your're walking down the street with a couple friends. The cops roll up, harass you, arrest you on a fake charge, take to the jail, strip search you, hold you in cramped filthy conditions for days. It's already too much to forgive.

But then how are people even supposed to know they can get it expunged? Do you think the fucking cops show up at your apartment to explain your expungement rights every time the rules change? No, they do not. Even if you are lucky enough to navigate the bureaucracy and get an expungement, then you get intimidated into signing away your right to sue the city.

That's what a racist, oppressive system of policing looks like through and through. That's the shit that causes riots.

Many prominent members of the African American community in Baltimore have spoken out against these brutally racist and terroristic policies. You can keep defending these policies if you want but the expungements were of limited help to the people whose lives were effected by this overall picture.

Baltimore: "Marilyn Mosby blames Martin O'Malley for violence"
http://www.abc2news.com/news/crime-checker/baltimore-city-crime/marilyn-mosby-blames-martin-omalley-for-violence

"Martin O'Malley was not just wrong, but savagely wrong on criminal justice issues."
-West Baltimore rep. Jill Carter
http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/fault-lines/articles/2015/6/12/maryland-delegate-martin-omalley-savagely-wrong-on-criminal-justice.html

And as far as what I can tell, O'Malley is still defending this kind of policing because he says it brings down crime statistics. But for me it's just beyond obvious these policies are racist and classist and if that's how martin o'malley thinks a mayor is supposed to bring down crime stats, then I won't be voting for him.

I don't think you understand what expunged means. Also in Maryland, you can't ask job applicants if they have prior arrests. A Mayor of a city as violent as Baltimore in the 90s is certainly expected to bring down the crime stats. Kids couldn't even walk to school. That was fixed and the city improved.

All of your rhetoric is attempting to hide some exaggerations you like to tell about O'Malley (and me) such as I support those policies and that O'Malley still defends that type of policing. It ignores how awful life was in the grips of out-of-control drug gangs running rampant It ignores the people who took over and ran things for 7-1/2 years after O'Malley left office.

It's a long shot, but it's been done before. (Bill Clinton didn't even bother with Iowa, and started getting traction after placing 3rd in New Hampshire.)

Which is why that has not happened.
Dunno about Hillary supporters. Like someone up-thread said, O'Malley seems like a scrubbed-up Third-Wayer. IMO. No matter how many times I read the list of his accomplishments. O'Malley is closer to Hillary than to Bernie.

Why would he look more attractive to a Bernie supporter? Even if, as has been said by others, in other OP's, we are all stupid-heads or whatever, for not seeing O"Malley's greatness? Administrative experience? Like Bernie has not been a mayor, and HRC has not been SOS? In another OP an O'Malley supporter (staffer?) went on and on about Bernie and black voters. I doubt even one Bernie supporter will be swayed by that, to stop supporting Bernie and start supporting O'Malley. It sure as hell won't impress HRC supporters, just red meat for them.

If a candidate fails to catch on, that is on the candidate, for whatever reason. And at this stage of the incredibly long and ridiculously drawn-out primary process, I can say that i will not be feeling actual enthusiasm for anyone but Bernie.

The good news, I guess, is that there is still a long time until the first votes are cast. Expecting people to switch support from two very polarizing candidates is futile, methinks. Lots of undecided voters out there, though, who don't pay attention to any of this until a lot closer to the elections.

I couldn't support Webb or Chafee and certainly not Clinton. As we get closer to the primaries and the first debate there is always a chance things will break his direction. Some people on DU act as though this will be a coronation, but we don't really know for sure how things will turn out over the next 5 months or so (I could take a guess, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that it was just a guess).

Trump sucks a lot of oxygen out of the room as he has to have attention 24/7. I would love nothing more then to see Trump fall on his ass.

How would they slime him? They can't. He is the John Edwards of this campaign. They will ignore his campaign to death.

Sanders may not be the orator that Obama is, but MOM puts you to sleep.

O'Malley, despite saying all the right things right now, hung out with Third Wayers at least for a while (there's video floating around, iirc, that shows him giving a speech at a third way conference) and as a mayor was a 'law and order' type who oversaw a lot of 'broken windows' policing.

So why not O'Malley? I'm not sure whether he's entirely repudiated his Third Way associates, and at least one of the big issues this election revolves around is wealth inequality and economic policy as it changes where the money is going.

OMalley's history with the DLC. Attraction to that elitism is simply a toxic taint of personality for me. I've hated being pushed to drink from their coup since Clinton's first administration, and I don't support them in primaries, haven't in almost 20 years.

Yes, OMalley is a bit younger and he says many things similar to Sanders and Warren. Yes, you could say he appears positioned between Clinton and Sanders, which is a more middling position among the leading candidates, which would appear to people who judge candidates by such arithmetic to be a calculatedly good position in which to run.

And here is a bit of O'Malley as an author defending the DLC and giving love to the New Dems'

"Our Chance to Capture the Center"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/06/AR2007080601158.html

By Martin O'Malley and Harold Ford Jr.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007

With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.

The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.

But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven't voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out. With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.

right before an election.

Lie down with dogs...etc etc.

Many Marylanders were disgusted with his time as Governor. Folks stayed home and a Republican was elected Governor in 2014. How does that happen in Maryland?

#1) Raintax
#2) He was a brutal mayor while in Baltimore, who made every effort to fuel the PIC on the backs of young black men.

Calling it a "rain tax" is accepting the right-wing anti-environment spin.

It sounds so ridiculous, it is the first attack on O'Malley that I looked up.

So it sounds like you are AGAINST making businesses pay for their impacts on the environment?


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

something I do OFTEN!

in NO way were 'most' Marylanders, me among them, 'disgusted' with his time as Governor. And incidentally, this was AFTER his 2 terms as Baltimore mayor, during which crime and drugs diminished significantly.

He was term-limited out, could NOT run for a third term, and his 'to be' Democratic successor ran a lackluster campaign.

democrats supported the repeal of the rain tax. It was a bad idea, the urban poor and working class should not have to pay for stormwater runoff. I don't care what anyone calls it.

IT'S A FEDERAL MANDATE!

A stormwater management fee was established via House Bill 987 (April 2012) and signed into law by then-governor Martin O'Malley, affecting the largest urban jurisdictions in Maryland (nine counties and the City of Baltimore) in order to meet the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act as it concerns the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Tax Foundation states House Bill 987 "was passed in response to a decree by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally known as the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load, which identified mandatory reductions in nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment that damage the Chesapeake Bay." This mandate from the EPA was mandated to the states of Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Maryland is the only state that has levied a tax to meet the EPA’s standards.[2] According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the fastest-growing source of bay water pollution from Maryland is currently stormwater runoff.[3][4] This tax, of course, does not tax rain but has been implmented in varying ways at the county level, such as a flat fee per property owner, or based on impervious surface square footage.

The law specifies that accrued funds must be used for specified stormwater pollution-related purposes.[5]

This law was modified in 2015 to make the county-assessed fees optional rather than mandatory while still holding the counties responsible for making progress on managing polluted runoff.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_tax

but Bernie is trying to inspire a grass roots revolution, while O'Malley seems to want to implement change through executive management.

In any other time, I think O'Malley would have been the front-runner.

If Bernie hadn't entered the race I think the vast majority of Bernie supporters would support O'Malley. I know I would have.

Senator Sanders is trustworthy and authentic.

O'Malley may indeed be as honest, but for most of us, he is another unproven politician saying populist things, with some questionable parts in his history. Compared to Sanders who has decades of being on OUR side, consistently and without wavering.

do not want Hillary Clinton to be President. That left very little room in the public mind for a third candidate. In elections, we tend to want to decide between two people. That's why O'Malley isn't getting the attention he probably should be getting, I think. Voters like binary choices.

being second created a "not Hillary" bandwagon. O'Malley would have gotten that had he run before BS.

I agree it's a good point that O'M is younger.

O'M is a good candidate and has a good platform. I hope that Bernie and O'Malley can run together. That would be an amazing ticket.

It seems like he would have made a better showing. The MSM doesn't even mention him as an option generally speaking.

He's my first choice!

not getting himself into the contest until after Sanders had declared.

O'M had purportedly been planning to run all along-- so why didn't he get into it early?

Lots of folks were waiting for someone willing to take on Hillary, and Bernie got to those people first.

I'd have to say that I told myself and anyone else who would listen to me , that if Bernie Sanders EVER ran for president, he had my vote. Bernie spoke to me the first time I ever heard speak on the House floor and I've followed him for years.

I do like Martin. He's my second choice. When Bernie wins, I think O'Malley or Barbara Lee would be a great VP.

Plus O'Malley's tough on crime stance while mayor of Baltimore is a turn-off for me.

Barbara Lee would be an excellent choice, now that you mention it. A well-respected strong voice on issues that would complement Bernie's views and a female.

a sour note in the context of the local concerns about his tough-on-crime reputation. Plus, O'Malley is a bit of a charter-school guy and has made of a lot of pro-chamber of commerce/pro-business-tax-breaks speeches and he's an anti-legalization candidate, and those are not position I like much.

Still, these are smallish complaints. I'm fine with O'Malley. I prefer him to Chafee, Webb (no thanks), and Biden. If O'Malley catches on fire, I'd still support Sanders (who is well to the left of O'Malley -- they are not as close in ideology as your OP suggests), but it would not be a disappointment if O'Malley won the nomination.

Martin seems to kind of get it, and I believe many people may worry that is another centrist spouting populist ideas just to get elected.

That said, I'd be fine with voting for Martin if he won the primary.

I like what he has to say, and I admit to being a little bit of a fangirl because he kinda reminds me of my husband physically (and they’re both pretty damned good guitar players). I heard O’Malley mulling over a run before I heard Bernie was considering. I was fully prepared to throw my support and volunteer for O’Malley until Sanders declared.

I have been watching the absolute WARRIOR that Bernie has been for many years now. Not as far back as his Burlington mayoral career, but since he was in Congress and especially when he became Senator. The ONLY thing I really got from my years of watching MSNBC was that they had him on ALL the time, and he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and wouldn’t let the “reporters” throw him off with some piddling little BS. He is whip-smart, confident and has the courage of his never-changing convictions behind him.

That’s why Bernie is getting my primary vote and why I volunteered for the campaign. I hope Bernie wins and picks O’Malley as his running mate but I doubt he’d pick another east coast liberal. If O’Malley wins the general I would happily vote for him.

I think he's a good candidate.

Not a whole lot of people as TV shows go, but we're everywhere, and we were ready to talk up Bernie to everyone we know, in real life and social media, as soon as he announced.

Bernie is also strongly supported by the people from Vermont. Not necessarily that they support him to be president (many do), but they have good things to say about him as their senator.

O'Malley had no nationwide recognition at all. All he started with are the people of Maryland, and their statements are often not positive. The creator of The Wire heavily criticized the police and criminal justice system in Baltimore under O'Malley.

If the people of Maryland were sending out lots of social media support for O'Malley to their friends out of the state, that would get a ball rolling for him. But, crucially, I don't see many Marylanders talking up their former governor.

has run for the past four (+/-?)years and is widely credited in political circles of giving Senator Sanders a leg up in the race and enhancing his national stature.

Bernie calls in from wherever he is and takes unscripted calls from listeners for an hour. Thom's audience is well-informed, and the questions are substantive. Bernie handles them all, on a wide variety of topics.

If you have Dish network, you get the show on FreeSpeech TV and LinkTV. Here is a website you can watch some past episodes of Brunch with Bernie:

https://www.freespeech.org/collection/brunch-bernie

To gain the exposure, name recognition, and voicing of one's ideas that come from nationally televised debates.
It is hurting the party not to have good Democratic ideas being exposed to the public rather than all RNC all the time by giving them the debate field all to themselves.

It is too bad, because both O'Malley and Sanders have ideas I think the country needs to hear.

It is political malpractice by the DNC IMO.

I would vote for O'Malley, and he did do a lot of good things as Governor. But as a Marylander quite familiar with his record, I have to say that it is decidedly mixed.

On the bright side, as mayor he did make some positive reforms of the police department, but his mass arrest policies were awful, and his reference in 2013 to critics of those policies as "leftwing ideologues" suggests to me where he is really coming from. And no, there is no serious evidence those policies made the streets of Baltimore any safer. He failed to bring the murder rate down much at all, but that rate did decline rapidly after O'Malley was no longer mayor and his mass arrest policy was abandoned. The rest of his so-called Baltimore miracle was helped quite a bit by juking the stats according to some insiders. For example, official rape statistics might seem to suggest that the incidence of rape fell precipitously (indeed, miraculously) under O'Malley, but it has been shown that Baltimore under O'Malley had an absurdly high level of police reports where the officer described the reported rape as "unfounded" thereby keeping the official rate of rape low.

He did a great job making the Maryland income tax more progressive, but he also raised many regressive taxes and fees (e.g., the sales tax, gasoline tax, and taxes on cigarettes and alcohol), which disproportionately hurt the poor.

On the environment, he did some good stuff and some bad stuff. For example, he did help to make the Chesapeake Bay cleaner, but his delays in implementing new rules to control phosphorus levels in the bay was a big disappointment to environmentalists.

He waffled horribly on marriage equality before he ultimately signed off on it.

He defended the rights of immigrant children even though he thereby incurred the anger of the Obama administration. I really like his views on immigration issues in general. I think O'Malley "gets it" in a way that Obama doesn't.

O'Malley also was instrumental in abolishing capital punishment in Maryland, and he raised the minimum wage, and he helped keep college costs reasonable at public universities in Maryland. These are all real accomplishments he can be proud of.

On the whole, he did pretty well, but Bernie is way better in my opinion.

charismatic enough to light the fire on his own.

In fact, a goodly amount of his support seems to be using him as a temporary parking space until they go for Clinton in earnest including some who seem mostly to think claiming to be O'Malley supporters lends them extra credibility in their defenses of Clinton and attacks on Sanders but have pretty much jack apple shit to say about O'Malley.

Not to say he doesn't have serious supporters who have genuine enthusiasm but there are seemingly a significant portion who claim to support him that are just using him as a stead and have little to nothing to say about him.