No Luck of the Irish

For those who were wondering when it would become clear that former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley's political career was over, the suspense ended when the topic of who should be President Biden's Ambassador to Ireland came up.

Former Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O'Neill III (below), son of the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill, has expressed interest in the post.  And - wait for it! - O'Malley endorses his bid.

The ambassadorship to Ireland was pretty much the only position left in the Biden administration that O'Malley was qualified for, having been passed over for Housing and Urban Development Secretary and Transportation Secretary.  It was also the only one of those jobs where being an Irish Catholic was not a drawback but rather an asset.  But it should have been obvious, before Biden was elected, that O'Malley had ended his political ambitions when his preferred Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke ended his campaign.   O'Malley's Win Back Your State PAC shut down after the 2018 midterms - and if you don't believe me, try going to its Web site! - and he did nothing to campaign for Democrats in the 2020 elections even as other Democratic supporters were finding ways to do so around the pandemic.  He endorsed Biden after he won the Democratic presidential nomination but did not actively promote him. 

Personally, I think O'Malley knew he went from being a rising star in the Democratic Party to a shooting star (a path many Democrats have followed) when he declared in January 2017 that it was time to fight far-right Trump supporters and CNN's Jake Tapper asked incredulously what he meant be that.  Or maybe he knew that when everything he warned would happen if Hillary Clinton became the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee happened but political pundits continued to dismiss him with a thinly veiled sense of glee.   But backing O'Rourke for President only to see him become a bigger target of ridicule than himself (all that hopping on tables) was most likely the final nail in the coffin of O'Malley's post-gubernatorial aspirations.

But, in the end, maybe, as an O'Malley supporter, I did win.  Because I wanted to see an Irish-American President with a moderate style and a progressive agenda who was also rooted in his Catholic faith and appreciated William Butler Yeats.  I got that guy.  His name is Joe Biden.

So what if President Biden doesn't play the guitar? 😃  

O'Malley could come back later in this decade.  He's still relatively young.  But for now, he's out of the picture.