Martin O’Malley calls it quits
Suspends presidential campaign after a disastrous night in Iowa
Above: Never catching presidential fire: ex-Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.
After trudging down the campaign trail for eight months, Martin O’Malley has suspended his presidential campaign after a doleful showing at the Iowa caucuses.
The former mayor of Baltimore and ex-Maryland governor garnered just 8 delegate-equivalent votes in the caucuses – or 0.57% of the total cast, according to the New York Times.
It was a sad end to a campaign that had sputtered and gasped and never caught fire.
O’Malley sought to play the “true progressive” in the race, but he quickly lost that role to Bernie Sanders. Similarly, he couldn’t escape the shadow of 2008, when he was one of Hillary Clinton’s most vehement supporters.
Announcing his candidacy last May in the wake of the Freddie Gray riot (where he took a lot of flak for his zero-tolerance policing policies while Baltimore’s mayor), O’Malley talked about his 15 Goals to Rebuild the American Dream, his plan to move the country to 100% clean electric power by 2050, and the need to enact humane immigration reform.
The Thrill Is Gone
He campaigned tirelessly not only in Iowa, but in New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina and elsewhere, rarely returning to his family home in Homeland (in north Baltimore) that he purchased after departing from the governor’s mansion in 2015.
While he occasionally showed flashes of potential (he had a ready wit during several of the presidential debates and could still flash a smile that had captivated Marylanders for nearly a decade), he never polled higher than in the single digits nationally.
His pitch that he was the candidate for the next generation fell far short of what was needed to build a base of support.
The demise of O’Malley’s presidential dreams has a political footnote. In 1983, the bright-eyed 20-year-old joined the Gary Hart presidential campaign. He volunteered to go to the Hawkeye State where he strummed his guitar and tooted a tin whistle at fundraisers and other events.
Little-known Hart came in second to Walter Mondale in the Iowa caucuses, picking up a respectable 16% of the vote, or 30 times more than supported a mature O’Malley tonight.