Coming On Strong

Martin O'Malley made what many are calling his best effort at getting voters to consider him in the Iowa caucuses at CNN's January 25 town-hall forum, despite getting confrontational questions about his record as mayor of Baltimore while Hillary Clinton got fielded softballs.  And it may not be enough.  In fact, for the Daily Kos, it didn't even come close. 

After O'Malley told his supporters to "hold strong" on caucus night this coming Monday to avoid letting him slip below 15 percent of the vote and leave Iowa without a single convention delegate, he urged people to consider new leadership in making their choice at their local precinct caucus.  The Daily Kos immediately reported this as an appeal by O'Malley that his supporters opt for Bernie Sanders as soon as he (O'Malley) proves to be non-viable during the caucus meetings.     

The way a caucus works, O'Malley supporters have to withstand efforts by the Sanders or Hillary Clinton campaigns to join them and abandon Marty on the grounds that he can't win - an idea the Daily Kos has not been shy to promote.  At that, I stopped reading the Daily Kos.  I always had a thing against their penchant for knee-jerk biases, such as making fun of conservative entertainment celebrities for their movies or TV shows or for their music when their art had nothing to do with their questionable politics or personal lives.  (They used Tom Selleck's water theft for his farm as an excuse to bash his acting ability, though one had nothing to do with the other.)  But their attempt to make O'Malley sound like he decided he was going to lose was too much.  

The truth is, O'Malley isn't entirely unknown in Iowa.  He has crisscrossed the state for months and he's been on numerous local television programs (the photo above is a still from an appearance on KCWI-TV).  He's made tremendous strides in getting his message out.  And he could still be in a position to pull a surprise upset - maybe not first place but second place or a third-place finish far more respectable than the one the polls say he's going to get.  If the Daily Kos wanted to make him sound like a defeatist or a quitter, they failed.

One of the reasons I like Martin O'Malley is that he's not a quitter.  Ironically, I have quit several things because of O'Malley.  Having quit listening to Ed Schultz's show because Ed kept bashing O'Malley, I have also quit a Democratic Facebook group because the Hillary supporters wouldn't stop bashing me for my support of O'Malley.  Now I've quit reading Kos.  And it's all because none of these media outlets would quit bashing my candidate.

If O'Malley is forced to withdraw from the Democratic presidential nomination contest, I will support Bernie Sanders, and I would prefer to see the majority of O'Malley supporters back Bernie in that event.  But I'm not quitting the candidate until the candidate quits me.