Martin Is Talking

The man who couldn't get thirty seconds from Lester Holt got over eight minutes from Rachel Maddow.  

Former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley appeared on Maddow's MSNBC talk show this past Thursday (April 7), and it was his first interview since dropping out of the Democratic presidential nomination campaign in February.  He said that he hadn't been sure as to whether he should make a bid for the Presidency, but his wife Katie encouraged him to do so, telling him that Democratic voters shouldn't have just two choices.  Ironically, that's what they were left with outside Iowa after caucus goers in that state gave him no more than six-tenths of a percent of the vote, effectively telling him that they didn't want a third choice. O'Malley said that he will support the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee, but he will not endorse either candidate for the nomination.  Frankly, the Democratic Party should consider itself lucky to have his support for the fall campaign, after the two remaining candidates (you know their names; I won't repeat them) treated him with contempt and disrespect and the Democratic National Committee pissed on his own candidacy.

O'Malley also made it clear that he's still engaged on the issues, joining with groups protesting inaction on climate change and the suppression of the vote.  Martin O'Malley clearly has a future in politics, and he could still be a presidential candidate in 2020.  But not in the Democratic Party; I still hold to the prediction that the Democratic Party will pick the wrong presidential candidate and lose the 2016 election, capping a cycle of getting its butt whipped at the polls, and Whig out.    

It's also very likely that, as the nominee of a new party that hasn't been formed yet, O'Malley could face an opponent of an as-yet unformed party that will replace the Republicans.