Posted on 04/23/2015 5:51:43 AM PDT by markomalley
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley hasn’t gotten much respect from the pundits for his plans to run for president. Since up until now O’Malley has been treating Hillary Clinton with a deference that is not compatible with a serious challenge to her grip on the Democratic nomination, why should anyone take him seriously? But the days of O’Malley bowing and scraping before the might of the Clintons may be over, and that may have more to do with Clinton’s problems than O’Malley growing a spine.
O’Malley is now firing shots at Clinton about trade, indicating he plans to try to run well to her left. Though his chances of beating her still may be calculated as being somewhere around zero, O’Malley’s sudden switch from timidity to truculence toward the former first lady is significant because it illustrates how the accumulation of bad news for Clinton is changing perceptions about her vulnerability. Clinton’s shaky launch of her candidacy and her inability to evade the taint of scandal is making O’Malley’s challenge look less like an exercise in futility.
With a 50-point lead over O’Malley and any other possible rival, even a political earthquake may not be enough to derail Clinton’s path to coronation at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia next summer. But even Clinton loyalists must understand that the drip-drip-drip of scandals combined with her wooden campaign style is emboldening even seemingly tame opponents such as O’Malley.
Throughout the last several months, O’Malley has acted as if he wanted to ask the Clintons for permission before he said a word about Hillary. Such deference made it appear that he was running for a spot on her ticket, not to replace her on the top spot. But the strident tone adopted by O’Malley when he took after her today in the course of demonstrating his opposition to President Obama’s trade bill showed that the days of his saying, “please, may I” before even glancing at her are over.
Granted, most Democratic primary voters don’t care about Clinton’s callous disregard of the rules and any sense of accountability that her email scandal illustrated. Nor do many of them seem particularly worked up about the Clinton Cash accusations about the way former President Clinton raked in honorariums and contributions for the family charity from foreign donors while his wife was serving as secretary of state despite the obvious and unprecedented conflict of interest.
But Clinton’s attempt to play the populist in an attempt to head off a challenge from the left by Senator Elizabeth Warren—the one Democrat who is seen as having even a small chance of knocking her off—isn’t convincing even her most ardent fans. Nor are even they impressed by the stilted nature of her campaign so far. Despite her vast resources at her disposal as she begins raising the billions she plans on spending over the course of the next year and a half, as well as the fear that the Clinton attack machine inspires among most Democrats, O’Malley is sensing that all these advantages are masking some real weaknesses.
If the Clinton Cash charges stick rather than fade away as the chorus line of Clinton apologists trotted out on cable news keep insisting, then for the first time in this cycle it might be possible for a non-Clinton candidate to start eating into her enormous lead. That might lead to a scenario where O’Malley may finally benefit from being the only mainstream Democrat who had the chutzpah to challenge Hillary. Of course, that might lead Warren to come out of hiding and jump into the race. But if not, that’s the point where O’Malley will be transformed from a joke to a genuine thorn in Clinton’s side.
We’re a long way from that point, but O’Malley’s new boldness is a warning sign for Clinton that it’s not just Republicans who realize what a lousy candidate she still is. Many Democrats resent not having a competitive race and will be prepared to back a long-shot challenger if only to make things more competitive. Which means that far from coasting to the nomination, she may actually have to spend some of the billions she is planning on raising on winning the nomination. That’s good news for O’Malley as well as for Republicans who would relish the spectacle of Democrats turning on each other rather than merely lying in wait for whomever it is that emerges from the GOP primaries.
O’Mallarky is playing his cards right trying to position himself for 2020.
Martin O’Malley is a moronic, marxist, jackass.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Little Marty has all of the perfect Marxist qualities that make him the perfect Rat candidate. But he does not have a chance at the nomination because of a few little boxes that can’t be checked off, i.e., he is white, male, and married to a woman.
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