Wednesday, March 13, 2019

The Ghost Of Martin O'Malley Returns

Martin O'Malley resurfaced again this past weekend, attending the South by Southwest festival in Austin to take in some policy lectures.  Apparently, he was also there to consult with and advise Beto O'Rourke, who was there not to declare his 2020 presidential candidacy but to promote a new documentary about his 2018 Senate campaign.
O'Malley remains convinced that Beto's the guy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but still, I have my doubts.  I still think O'Malley was. I opined a month ago that O'Malley ruled himself out of running for President again because he realized he was too white and too male to succeed in a party obsessed with "diversity."  So how do I explain his support for O'Rourke, who is also lacking in melanin and estrogen?  I don't.  Unless, perhaps, that, at a time when being a straight white male is a handicap when seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, O'Malley sees O'Rourke as the best candidate for the Presidency and sees him as being uniquely suited to overcome that handicap.
I don't know about that.  A recent poll of Iowa Democrats showed that only 38 percent of them would be happy with another straight white male presidential nominee.  If Democrats in overwhelmingly white Iowa are down on pale males, what does that portend for Democrats in states like California and O'Rourke's own state of Texas?  Also, as noted here before, O'Rourke has a dubious record on supporting bankers and oil companies, and he supported trade policies unpopular with the left.  These are positions that O'Malley would have trouble endorsing.  I think O'Malley sees in his fellow Irish homey a kindred spirit beneath his wishy-washy policy positions.  I plan to take a closer, more detailed look at O'Rourke once he's an announced candidate, which should be some time after this post gets archived.  Or when the Mueller report comes out.  Either way, a long wait.     
Perhaps being of the wrong sex and the wrong race for Democratic voters himself was not a reason O'Malley chose not to run again. O'Malley admitted recently that his fractional-percentage showing in the 2016 Iowa caucuses would have made it difficult for him to convince prospective donors to back him - long-shot presidential candidates who drop out after Iowa and New Hampshire, regardless of party, usually don't run for President a second time - and that's as good a reason as any not to run for President again.  But I think there may have been another reason . . . that ongoing rumor of an extramarital affair that produced a love child.  Though it's long since since proven to be bogus, Donald Trump would have brought it up had O'Malley been the 2016 or the 2020 Democratic nominee.  I know this because Trump did bring it up when O'Malley was only a long-shot 2016 presidential candidate. No one else took Trump's comments about O'Malley seriously - but only because no one took O'Malley seriously.              
By endorsing O'Rourke before O'Rourke has even declared that he's running for President, though, O'Malley has risked being taken even less seriously by his critics in the press, if that's even possible.  He's the political equivalent of Billy Joel, who made all of these grand albums in the late seventies and early eighties as a way of begging critics who would never see him as anything other than a lightweight to take him seriously.  (The difference?  Joel fills an arena once a month.)  O'Malley is gambling his credibility on endorsing another white guy like himself - and an Irish Catholic like himself at that - at a time when not too many Democrats are into us honky dudes.  Let's hope he doesn't roll craps. 

No comments: