Martin O'Malley For HUD Secretary

As President-elect Biden's transition team starts making appointments that include Ron Klain as White House Chief of Staff and Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond as director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Cabinet appointments can't be far behind.  May I make a modest but obvious proposal?  I propose that former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley - whom I once thought we'd be referring to today as the President-elect - as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

To me, this choice is a no-brainer.  O'Malley was mayor of Baltimore before he became governor of Maryland, and he is a cheerleader for cities.  He led Baltimore in the aftermath of the early-2000s recession, and he used a statistics-driven approach to governing that aimed at improving services and targeting high-crime areas to make the police more responsive and make neighborhoods more secure.  Yes, his approach to public safety was flawed, but this likely had more to do with an entrenched, reform-resistant police department than anything O'Malley did.  His management of Baltimore led to a savings of $350 million and led to a budget surplus for the city.

He continued his commitment to Baltimore as governor of Maryland, championing a light rail line for the predominantly black western side of the city that would spur economic development.  (Larry Hogan, his Republican successor as governor of Maryland, quashed the project.)  O'Malley is an expert on city government and how cities run.  He recognizes the untapped possibility of cities in an regrettably suburban-dominated country such as this.  As someone who escaped suburban ennui after growing up in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. and became a city slicker by choice, O'Malley knows the value of urban America better than most Democrats of his ilk, and he's willing to fight for cities and help improve them.

Would this be a stepping stone to a 2024 or 2028 presidential candidate?  Don't bet on it; O'Malley will be in his sixties by then, and he won't be the boy wonder that he was when he ran for the Presidency in 2016. But this job of HUD Secretary is as perfect a fit for him as it is not for current HUD Secretary Ben Carson, and it would be a perfect way to O'Malley to cap a mostly brilliant political career. 

(P.S.  Don't assume that I'm right when I say you shouldn't bet on a future O'Malley presidential candidacy.  Back in June 2015, when Donald Trump announced his 2016 presidential campaign, this is what I wrote on this blog: "Trump isn't going to win the Republican presidential nomination.")