If Bernie wasnt in, O'Malley would be my guy.

What kind of question is that?

But no seriously, the OP is serious about being serious.

Very Serious People™

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/?s=very+serious+people&_r=0

Another purity test...

because of Sanders but will vote third party if he is not the nominee?

Their platforms really are not very different. But from the few O'Malley bits I've seen, Sanders seems to do a better job presenting that platform. And in a way that fits better with bite-size media coverage.

Also, nothing gets him off-message, which is an unfortunate necessity with our terrible journalists.

For example, O'Malley's "All lives matter" then backtracking from it would make good attack ads. One targeting him saying it, and one targeting him retracting it. Yes, it's a stupid non-issue. But it's unfortunately the environment in which we live.

issue that must be dealt with before anything else can be addressed the money in politics.

And I wondered at first, how can he SAY these things, yet have enough money to stay viable against the billions being poured into this campaign.

And he answered that question. He didn't just SAY he was against it, he proved it, he walked the walk, didn't just talk and frankly I was amazed at his success myself.

There is no WAY a progressive/left agenda will ever get past Corporate Owned politicians and since most of them are now, THIS has to be the first order of business that this country tackles.

O'Malley says he opposes it, but is accepting it, has these awful Super Pacs funded by Dark Money.

That is why I switched, mainly. And of course on many of the issues as a Democrat that I have supported, Bernie has a long record of supporting them, both with his votes and his actions.

He was a much better mayor than O'Malley IMHO and has been much more consistently on the right (correct) side of issues.

There arae long shots and then there are long shots

Also everything he's saying now is basically a con. He was a Third Way/DLC guy going way back even appearing at their events and held up as a poster child.

Everything he says isn't a con, because he already passed much of his agenda as Governor. Examples: Raising taxes on the rich, ending the death penalty, preventing fracking, pouring funds into education, etc, etc.

He's the one candidate with results in lieu of talk.

He was not known as a progressive governor at all on issues where the DLC wants him. He did some socially liberal stuff that isnt hard int he northeast.

O'Malley is rock square center in the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. He is not Third Way or DLC and when someone calls him this it sounds a bit like name calling intended to squash his campaign rather than accurate, thoughtful criticism.

But thanks for the honesty.

I support Sanders because across the board, we have more in common than not. O'Malley isn't a bad pick, but on the details we have more differences than I have with Sanders. I also feel that O'Malley, while he has been a good governor, doesn't have the nitty-gritty experience of working in the cesspool of politics on the Hill - I don't know if he has the stomach for it, in the end.

End of. Nothing to do with party or fear or anything else. Just reason.

PS: Nobody likes gotcha's - and you're swinging two of them with the "fear of Democratic candidates" and "there's only one wrong answer". If your thread sinks, those statements are probably the reason why.

Bernie for several reasons, though I like a lot about what O'Malley says he stands for.

1)I've been an admirer of Sanders for years. He was one of a handful of progressives in Congress in the 1990's who were trying to head off the disasters that could have been avoided if we had paid attention tand not allowed the Corporate Monopolists, Wall St. Shysters and the GOP and the DLC/Third Way get away with so many awful policies and decisions.

2)I trust him. Whether or not I might agree or disagree with him om a particular issue, I know he's doing what he's doing based on principle. I also think he's able to be pragmatic without selling us out.

3)O'Malley. I like much of what I've heard from him, and many of his proposals. And if it came to that, I could support him. But I don't know enough about him, and a few things do make me a little wary. Like how much he actually means it, and how much of it might be a new version of John Edwards opportunism.

I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing the first time I listened to one of his interviews. It was like all the cynicism I had for politics was washed away in that moment. The guy was basically reading my mind. I don't get that same impression from O'Malley, and there's just something about the way he delivers his message that is off putting to me. In my opinion, O'Malley just doesn't have the same level of sincerity that Sanders has.

He has a decades long proven populist history.

MOM talks a good populist agenda, but to me is an unproven ccommodity.

With recent history as a guide, campaigners can turn out to fail to follow thru when it comes time once in office.

Sanders worked his way to where he is from a position of being an activist. OMALLEY worked his way to where he is from a position of being a political staffer.

for Baltimore City before being on the City Council for 8 years.

What you expect me to believe he just dropped out of the sky fully formed? He was working for Gary Hart in the 80s. I don't like political staffers. To them it's all about playing the game.

and has for a very long time. i know and trust him. I was rooting for him before he even announced. That said, if O'Malley were to get the nomination, I would happily vote for him in the general.

I like O'Malley. I really do, enough so that when I was an undergraduate at Catholic Univ. of America in W. DC (He's also an alumni of CUA) I volunteered for his mayoral campaigns in Baltimore, an hour away from DC. I've known Martin in a passing capacity for virtually my entire adult life. I said 2 years ago if he ran, I'd probably work for his campaign because he was socially the best progressive we were likely to get...but as of now, he's my distant 2nd-choice. He's only held the right stances on the socially-left issues; his movement on fiscal issues and economic justice is a late-comer and less expansive than Sanders. He was also my governor in MD...a lot of those things he's saying now on the economic side are things he fought vociferously against in his time in that office and as Mayor of Baltimore.

Why is Martin O'Malley my second choice and not my first? I could give you all the reasons I like him but there are plenty of people that will tell of his accomplishments and qualifications; I'd rather tell you why he's not #1.

He's not a huge supporter of anti-poverty initiatives; most of his efforts to that end have been focused on alleviating the burden on the middle class and already upwardly-mobile. He's a long-time believer in tough-on-crime "broken window" community-policing initiatives of the same type and scope as those that many of us on the left were critical of when they were being pushed and implemented in NYC by Giuliani, Kerik, Bratton, Bloomberg, and others. (His response to public concerns in Baltimore about profiling were to skate the issue seemingly because he didn't care and it "worked&quot He's very big on "doing what works", even to an amoral degree; it's technocratic. He's a long-time drug warrior; buys into beliefs that marijuana is a gateway drug and all that crap. He was for a very long time the DLC poster-boy of what a Democratic big-city mayor should be, held up as the ideal. He believes in the uses of taxation to dictate behavior: sin taxes, rain taxes (actually a tax on the % of built-upon and developed land of a property.) He went out of his way to not put pressure on anti-LGBT Democrats in Prince George's Co. who very nearly derailed efforts for marriage equality in MD.

and had the courage to get in there and be the first to give us an alternative, and has built the necessary traction as a result.

I prefer O'Malley on some issues and he is my 2nd choice, but no one candidate is perfect and Bernie's long and consistent track record give me trust.

At this point, O'Malley's lack of traction becomes a serious negative. Maybe the debates -- or one of the multi-candidate forums in the works -- will give him a breakthrough. If that happens, I'll give him another look-see.

But I want somebody who believes in the bulk of what I believe in...and who looks like he has a chance to win.

As far as I know, he's still a Socialist even though he's running on the Democratic ticket.

Just like there are Democrats here who are Socialists.

I'd certainly consider voting for O'Malley if he gets the nomination...unlike some other candidates.

I would vote for O'Malley, he was never a member of the 3rd way or the DLC. But I won't have to vote for either of them because I'm voting for Bernie who in my opinion is more of a Democrat that Hillary will ever be. I trust Bernie he has a proven consistent record of being on the right side of any issue , the other two and Hillary especially I don't trust as far as I can throw them. It's like Zell Miller calling himself a Democrat, you just know he wasn't.

Glad you're no longer a host.

Re: the "wrong answer", no one who replied gave it.

Under the mistaken assmption that if they keep repeating it, like the first law of advertising -- repetition repetition repetition -- that holds that if you keep repeating the lie about LGBT owned by Clinton, that lie will eventually come to be taken as the truth.

Well it was a lie in 2008 and it is still a lie. And thanks for pointing that out, Scoot.

Five years or more he is on Thom Hartmann' s show every Friday answering questions giving his time making us all smarter and more informed. He is the real deal. There will never be another Bernie Sanders in my lifetime (I am 53).

... which also gives him a national presence and familiarity with many Americans all over the country. O'Malley has more regional visibility, and not the experience Sanders does at spontaneously responding to issues that are real critical to helping win debates, which I think makes it no coincidence that DWS is so hard nosed about not expanding the quantity and loosening the rules on debates that both Sanders and O'Malley are upset about. O'Malley could also benefit a lot more by having his ability to respond be put to the test in such a debate that people haven't seen yet like they've seen Sanders exhibit on Thom Hartmann as well. If Sanders weren't running, I'd probably look strongly at O'Malley as my choice.

But Sanders has somewhat better positions on the issues and more support, so he's my 1st choice.

He is under 3% in all the polls,which leads me to believe this isn't his time. The only place I hear about him is here.

Besides, I agree with Bernie and believe he is what he says he is.

O'Malley did. Young black people are dead in Baltimore because of O'Malley.

And no one's "afraid of a Democratic candidate".

This thread is just about using O'Malley to weaken Bernie. Only HRC gains from O'Malley picking up support.

His brain dead "tough on crime" policies created an atmosphere where police abuse was routine. People learned to fear and distrust the police. It created a culture that led up to abuses like the murder of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore riots of 2015.

He hasn't apologized for those policies. In fact he's very proud of them and says he has "no regrets" in the matter.

We can and should do better.

I imagine the debates and early states may change things as this gets more "real".

For about 20 years now. I agree with his positions on the issues, and I like his no nonsense attitude. When being interviewed, he is unparalleled at pivoting to his message from the fluff gotcha questions. He's honest and he is himself, always. He can beat the GOP, and he's energizing and inspiring. Edited to add that I like O'Malley, and he's my second choice right now. I think he'd be great as Bernie's Veep!