'I’m not a socialist, I don’t think Republicans are the enemy

[elleng]

and I don’t have ‘one foot trapped in the Cold War’: O’Malley sharpens attacks on Sanders and Clinton.

Martin O’Malley – the ‘insurgent’ Democrat trying to wriggle his party’s nomination out of Hillary Clinton’s clutches – turned up the heat today on his opponents, going after their foreign and economic policies with a new zest during an event in South Carolina.

He accused Vermont Senator and democratic socialist Bernie Sanders of wanting to ‘scrap capitalism’ and derided Clinton for describing Republicans as her enemies.


The former Maryland governor went after both for their record on guns and questioned Clinton’s competency as secretary of state.

‘I don’t have one foot trapped in the Cold War,’ he told reporters on Saturday afternoon after Daily Mail Online asked about the stepped up attacks on the two remaining Democrats in the race, aside from himself.

‘Secretary Clinton's had a lot of experience’ and ‘traveled widely,’ but he said ‘she's never demonstrated a capacity to understand what happens after a regime is toppled.’

‘You can be gleeful and laugh’ about Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's demise, O’Malley said, but it would have been better to understand who the next generation of leaders were.

They’re both ‘good people, O’Malley said, referring to Clinton and Sanders, but ‘this is the point in the race when people are measuring each of the three of us....and I intend to draw the contrasts, particularly on our economic proposals and our economic ideas.’

‘I don’t believe that in order to fix what's wrong with our economy and make it work again for all of us that we should scrap capitalism, and replace it with socialism. That's a failed ideology from our past,’ he asserted.

hen added, in a jab at Clinton, ‘Nor do I believe that we bring people by declaring that all Republicans are our enemies.’

‘And I also don’t subscribe to Secretary Clinton's economic theory, which is to take orders from the big banks and Wall Street and create an economy of the few, by the few and for the few,’ he said. ‘That's called crony capitalism, and I don't believe in that.’

Coming back to his complaints about Clinton’s foreign policy chops minutes later, he said, ‘Secretary Clinton voted for the invasion Iraq - it was bad judgement’ and again hit her for supporting the intervention in Libya.

The country needs a Commander in Chief who has a ‘much better capacity to see over the horizon,’ he said.

O’Malley’s amped up rhetoric is one way his campaign hopes to change the dynamic in the two months and change that remain before the first, real contest.

MSNBC reported this week that the campaign was sending much of its headquarters staff out on the campaign trail.

The ex-governor and Baltimore mayor confirmed the shift in focus today, and said, ‘We're putting everything we have into the early states now.’

Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote, are the campaign’s targets, he said. ‘Our efforts are very much front-loaded on that calendar.’

‘I'm an insurgent candidate. So I’ve gotta martial resources,’ he told reporters during a gaggle after his remarks at the Charleston County Democratic Party’s Blue Jamboree. ‘And after that, it’s a matter of leap-frogging over and getting organized very quickly.’

If he lasts that long, Democratic strategists say. He's averaging less than five percent in Iowa, and has a five percent cap right now in New Hampshire.

O’Malley’s decision to accept public matching funds this week gave him a short-term infusion of cash that will allow him to stay in the race for now, but it won’t prop it up for ever, veteran campaign manager Joe Trippi told the Washington Post last week.

‘You die now or die later. Either way, it’s not going to end well,’ he said.

At the end of the last financial reporting quarter two months ago, O’Malley had less than a million left in his campaign checking account. Clinton and Sanders each had more than $25 million cash on hand - $33 million for Clinton and roughly $27 million for Sanders.

O’Malley told reporters today that his campaign ‘had the best week of fundraising we've had’ following last Saturday’s debate and hadn’t taken on any debt in reassigning resources.

‘I intend to win this nomination,’ he said. ‘I intend to win the general election.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3328864/I-m-not-socialist-don-t-think-Republicans-enemy-don-t-one-foot-trapped-Cold-War-O-Malley-sharpens-attacks-Sanders-Clinton.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I like O'Malley but he's very wrong about a couple of things:

First, the Republicans we are dealing with now are the enemy. Their front-runner, Trump, just announced that he thinks Muslims should have to be ID'd and register with the government and he'd shut down mosques. That's as about as inimical an announcement as I've heard in a long time - it has terrifying echoes of Nazi Germany. And, worse, his fans are just eating it up. I would go so far as to say the GOP candidates are an existential threat, at least politically. They sure as hell are the enemy.

And, second, Bernie has never suggested scrapping capitalism altogether and replacing it with socialism (the system where the state owns and controls the means of production and distribution); he's consistently advocated for a Scandinavian-style system involving a robust safety net and the regulation of private businesses sufficient to prevent them from controlling the entire economy to the detriment of the 99%.

I'm very disappointed that O'Malley would say such things. I now like him a bit less than I did.

[HereSince1628]

2. OMalley is getting desperate...desperate people do desperate things

Democratic socialism isn't against capitalism, it's pro-public owned institutions.

As Sanders says...it's about the billionaires not getting to own -everything-, which is quite different from private investors not owning anything.

[femmedem]

3. I'm extremely disappointed in O'Malley because he is smart enough to know

that Bernie Sanders has no intention of scrapping capitalism.

When I know a politician is lying for political expediency, I stop trusting everything else he is saying. Too bad; I support Sanders but up until this moment I liked him, too.