There aren’t many Democrats eager to step up and challenge Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primary, however, there are a handful we might see on the debate stage. Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley might be one of them.
Report from Time:
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signaled that he is moving closer to mounting a 2016 presidential campaign this weekend at the summer meeting of the National Governors Association in Milwaukee.
Speaking to reporters Saturday — 1,192 days before Election Day — while sipping a beer in the wood-paneled lobby of the Hilton hotel, the Democrat seemed excited by the possibility, speaking candidly about his ongoing preparations. ”It’s going well,” he said, adding that he’s given a number of significant addresses over the past several months at universities and think tanks. “By the end of this year I think we’re on course to have a body of work that lays the framework for a candidacy in 2016.”
O’Malley also highlighted the work of his O’ Say Can You See PAC, which is supporting “like-minded candidates,” and growing his social-media presence. The political-action committee raised more than $500,000 in the first six months of 2013 and donated to early state candidates Iowa Representative Bruce L. Braley, a 2014 candidate for U.S. Senate, and New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, as O’Malley oversaw one of the most productive — and most liberal — legislative sessions of any governor in the country. The governor signed strict gun-control legislation, boosted the state’s transportation funding and abolished the state’s death penalty. In 2012, he successfully advocated for initiatives to legalize same-sex marriages in Maryland.
I don’t truly think O’Malley can mount a coalition to seriously give Clinton a run for her money but he does have a record in Maryland which will appeal to the base of the Democratic Party.