Holy crap, 2016 fundraising is rough, especially if you are a Democrat not named Hillary Clinton. How rough? Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley spent the weekend engaging in his most aggressive push for campaign cash yet, and his office refuses to release how much he raised. What was his tactic?
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who is weighing a 2016 presidential bid, spent part of his Memorial Day doubling as a street musician in downtown Annapolis.
Maybe he was just practicing in case Arsenio Hall, circa 1991, called.
Wait, you have never heard of Martin O’Malley? Wonket superfan @LimeyLizzie would be aghast! In her honor, we shall give you a brief and thoroughly incomplete wonksplainer of who he is and why he is running for [vice] president.
O’Malley rose to prominence in Baltimore, serving on the city council and then running for mayor in 1999. This was unexpected, since O’Malley was the only white candidate in a city that is predominantly African-American. The best documentary made about this race was season 3 of The Wire, where creator David Simon said that O’Malley was an inspiration for Tommy Carcetti. True story!
After serving eight years as mayor, he turned his sights to the governor’s mansion. As governor, O’Malley is a FLAMING LIBERAL, the kind that we all hoped we would get with that Marxist Kenyan who begged us for change back in 2008. He signed a Maryland DREAM Act into law, which allows children of undocumented immigrants eligible for in-state tuition. He campaigned hard for allowing same-sex marriage in Maryland, helping Maryland become one of the first states in the country to legalize marriage equality through a voter referendum in 2012. And he got rid of capital punishment.
He also took on the NRA like a fuckin bawse, signing one of the most stringent gun control laws in the nation into law after the Newtown tragedy. How stringent?
The National Rifle Association on Wednesday renewed its promise to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law. It bans the sale of nearly all semi-automatic rifles, plus magazines that hold more than 10 bullets, and requires new gun buyers to submit digital fingerprints to state police.
Maybe that was an overreaction, considering there have been like zero mass shootings since Newtown.
O’Malley has made no effort to hide his national ambitions. Unfortunately, Hillary is hogging all the donations, leaving O’Malley begging for change on the streets of Annapolis. But why was he out there to begin with? Does he have musical talent?
O’Malley has been the frontman of a Celtic rock band since his days as a city council member in Baltimore in the 1990s. His band, O’Malley’s March, still plays several concerts a year, though it curtailed its schedule considerably after O’Malley started running for governor in 2006. His advisers were concerned at the time that the band detracted from O’Malley’s gravitas.
Really? Would YouTube have any videos of the governor playing? Since it was easy to find, here you go (although you have to wait while he gives a history lesson, but all the other bootleg recording were terrible quality and we know you expect better from wonket):
Not bad. Has the band been booked on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2015 yet? We’d watch.
Does O’Malley have a shot at getting the nomination? Well, he managed to become mayor of Baltimore, so we won’t count anything out. But more likely, he is auditioning to be Hillary’s veep because of that constitutional mandate that every presidential ticket have at least one white man. Sorry Sen. Warren.
[ Washington Post / Washington Post / photo via Twitter-@EyeOnAnnapolis]
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