Martin O'Malley is owed an apology...not Bernie Sanders!

[Peacetrain]

I have not posted in a number of months.. I have stepped away from politics...but this morning I tune in to MSNBC and Senator Sanders old campaign manager is there saying the DNC owes Sanders an apology.. give me a break.. If anyone is owed an apology it is Martin O'Malley.. because he is a Democrat!.. Sorry Bernie..but you do not have any sway over the DNC..you are not a Democrat.. and that is the end of the story.. Hillary Rodham Clinton gathered all the money together.. and Democratic workers.. well they may have kneecapped Gov. O'Malley.. but they did not kneecap Senator Sanders because he did not join the party.. and that is just the bottom line facts..

Now all that being said.. and yes it still hurts that Gov. O'Malley did not get the nod..but first and foremost.. I am a Democrat.. Big and Little D.. and the bigger issue is how Russia tried to derail our election .. Democratic and Republican voters were both targeted by the Russians to try and derail our elections..

[snooper2]

1. EXCATLY!

Martin would have made a better president than both of them in my mind.

[Pepsidog]

2. Agree totally

[OhZone]

3. I'm still for almost any Democrat -

Over a Con. O'Malley was fine. Biden. Almost any Dem. But Berie is not and was not a Dem. Still not.

[JaneQPublic]

4. Considering Sanders staff breached the DNC database...

...to view Hillary's data (and then screamed bloody murder because their access was halted because of it), it's a tad wearisome to hear Bernie now melodramatically playing the sole victim -- and an innocent one at that.

[Peacetrain]

23. That too!

[loyalsister]

5. Absolutely!!

I have been saying for a long time that I would have rather seen a primary where energy and resources focused on making him a stronger candidate. I think a strong effort that brought Hillary's experience, Bernie's and Warren's economic observations and solutions, and consistently appealed to identity politics might have been a better way to go.
The confrontational primary that pushed O'Malley aside was wasteful and has had a lasting negative effect.

[disillusioned73]

6. Both..

& the voters.. little D style

[m-lekktor]

7. I forgot about him. nt

[moda253]

8. Bernie Sanders and his (cult like) followers are not friends of the democratic party

I know my post is going to be deleted and I am probably going to get a nasty-gram for this but we need to wake the hell up and realize these people are not our friends. If they want our support they need to support our party, our agenda, and join our party. If they want to change our party they can do so as democrats through our party rules.

I am sick and god damned tired of being told I need to play nice with this faction that seeks nothing more than to destroy our party. And I wish that this website would wake the hell up.

[babylonsister]

14. Wow.

So all those people, including me, who supported Bernie, are not friends? Such a narrow-minded vision and a really lousy way to attract people TO the democratic party.

We used to be known as the big-tent party, but now, we have to toe the line or else?

In politics, a big tent or catch-all party is a political party with membership of diverse viewpoints and ideologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_tent

[tonedevil]

18. I'm seeing that...

a lot over the last few days as well babylonsister. There seems to be a vocal contingent that think they will win us over with tough love. There was once a Democrat who said Republicans want to fall in line while Democrats want to fall in love. It seems to me we are more and more told to fall in line.

[Jim Lane]

20. 13 million people voted for Bernie Sanders. Is your plan for 2020 to write us off? (n/t)

[Pacifist Patriot]

9. Agreed

I quite liked O'Malley.

[WhiteTara]

10. Both those men got the votes they got.

Many people across this country were pining for a woman president and Hillary had been working in the right jobs for many years and was totally qualified and wanted for the position.

Martin O'Malley is a good guy, but he barely raised an eyebrow across the country. Maybe if he had had more credentials or was better qualified he would have gotten more attention.

[dawg]

12. "more credentials or was better qualified..."

Two-term governor.

Two-term mayor of a major city.

Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association.

You don't get much more credentialed or qualified than Martin O'Malley.

[WhiteTara]

17. That's all state level and

he needed federal experience as well.

[karynnj]

13. I was surprised that he got so little support, but did see that BOTH Sanders and Clinton

had strong media and political allies, where he really didn't. I had thought early on, that if Clinton and Sanders clashed in the early primaries, you could have a Gephardt/Dean moment where people would look at the person talking reasonably and not fighting. However, both Sanders and Clinton did not sink to that level, though some of their supporters did.

It would be a HUGE leap in logic to think that it was HRC's control of the DNC that led to little or no media support for O'Malley. It could be that Sanders captured the imagination of the left of center Democrats and Hillary Clinton, was - as she had been for decades - the dream candidate for at least a large number of media people. It could be that, for the very reason he might have been a candidate that few would object to, he was also not someone many pundits saw as inspiring. That said, this to me says more about the people who are pundits in the media than O'Malley.

These same pundits had no use for Al Gore and John Kerry, and greatly harmed them through their constant whining that they were not "exciting" - even though both were men of integrity, vision and serious purpose. After 2004, one article I read suggested that it was something in America's culture to prefer the "bad boy" to the good boys who followed the rules. They argued this benefited Clinton over GHWB and W over Kerry and Gore. Could our opinion writers (Frank Rich etc) have lead us to favor entertainment over characteristics that we would label as good character traits for leaders? Consider the mocking that the moral, principled Jimmy Carter received. That article used "boy", but it could hold for women too.

Could 2016 be seen as the logical extreme of this? How was it a plus to some that the wealthy Trump family sent Donald to military school because he was out of control as teen? It was beyond obvious years before he ran that he is not what anyone would call a good person and he has no history of doing anything to help anyone. Is he the baddest bad boy of all?

That is a long tangent to suggest that there are many "parts" of the left that need to consider what their role has been. The left media needs to step back from being entertainment. We need to make the coverage of elections more than a game, where the only story is who wins and who loses.

[DavidDvorkin]

11. The media destroyed O'Malley

They belittled him from the start, even laughing at his being included in the debates. And during the debates, he was never given equal time or treated as the equal of the other two.

[Orsino]

15. An apology based on charges that Brazile seems to have made up? n/t

[JaneQPublic]

16. Look to the future, fellow O'Malley-ites

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/take-martin-omalley-at-least-somewhat-seriously-in-2020-seriously/?ex_cid=story-facebook

From 538: "Take Martin O'Malley at Least Somewhat Seriously in 2020"

O’Malley is playing out a party strategy that hasn’t worked in a while but might work now. If party elites (elected officials, activists, strategists, donors, etc.) are losing control of the presidential nominating contests — as they seemed to be in 2016 — O’Malley’s strategy might pay dividends. That doesn’t mean he’ll be the Democratic nominee, but it does mean we should pay attention to him.

...

According to candidate trackers, O’Malley spent 64 days in Iowa between 2013 and 2016, outpacing both Clinton (42 days) and Bernie Sanders (54 days). He trailed Sanders in days spent in South Carolina but still beat Clinton in time spent there. And O’Malley is still making those investments — he’s been among the most active potential 2020 candidates in terms of visiting three early-contest states (Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina).

I’ve been conducting interviews with Democratic activists and party officials in those early-contest states, asking which potential candidates for 2020 have already visited and made their interest in the Democratic nomination known. Nearly every person I’ve spoken to, without prompting, has mentioned O’Malley. What’s more, nearly everyone has noted that O’Malley has been a long-standing presence in these states since at least 2014. He’s even backed a gubernatorial candidate in the crowded 2018 Democratic nomination race in Iowa (for a candidate who worked intensely on O’Malley’s previous presidential campaign).

[DavidDvorkin]

19. I'm very encouraged by what he's been doing

He's building up contacts and political relationships quietly.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

21. +1000

[trueblue2007]

22. AGREE WITH YOUR COMMENT: Sorry Bernie..but you do not have any sway over the DNC..you are not a Demo

I THOUGHT MARTIN O'MALLEY WAS SPECTACULAR!!!

I have voted Dem in every election since Carter. I'd have loved to have O'Malley as our VP.

Thanks Peacetrain for your comments. I agree with all of them. Especially your last about the Russians.