Martin O’Malley faces uphill struggle in US Democratic race

Barbara O’Malley recalls the first time her son Martin ran for office. It was high school, the eighth grade and O’Malley was 14. As well as passing on a love of Irish music (via the Clancy Brothers), she had shared her interest in politics, suggesting that he run for class president.

“What will I do?” the young O’Malley asked her. “First you get some friends, then you make some posters and then you have a cause. So he got some friends, he got some posters and they made clever little things that said: ‘Rally, Rally Around O’Malley’,” she remembers.

His cause back in 1977 was recycling and he encouraged children to recycle drinking cans and bits of metal.

"It was helpful and the school got money," said Mrs O'Malley (87) who has worked for Maryland senator Barbara Mikulski for 27 years.

Sitting in Porter's Pub in the Federal Hill neighbourhood of southern Baltimore, Mrs O'Malley had just come from a nearby park where she saw her son, 38 years after his first campaign, tell a large crowd that he wanted to be the next president of the United States.

“He hopes to get some things done, for the better, just like he was in the eighth grade,” she said.

The Irish-American politician and great-grandson of an immigrant from Maam, Co Galway, became the third Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 race on Saturday in the sun-baked Federal Hill Park. His backdrop was the city he served as mayor from 1999 to 2007 in the state of Maryland that he led as governor from 2007 to 2015.

His most formidable opponent is Hillary Clinton, far and away the frontrunner for whom he campaigned against Barack Obama in 2008.

O'Malley and the Clintons go back even further. "I won't be surprised if you go all the way," said Bill Clinton in a letter to O'Malley, spotting his rising political star in 2002.

But now it's the heat of political battle and the 52-year-old politician is casting himself as a younger, more energetic alternative to the other two candidates in the Democratic race: Clinton, who is 67, and socialist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is 73.

O’Malley wants to be a champion of the struggling economic class which has fallen into the widening gap between the rich – the 1 per cent – and everyone else. His cause this time: repair the broken American Dream.

Generation game

O’Malley used the word “generation” six times in his launch speech, saying that his parents would never accept the notion that theirs was the greatest generation and that the story of America’s best days is not in a history book – “this generation of Americans is about to write it”.

Supporting a progressive cause in an attempt to appeal to grassroots liberal Democrats, O’Malley bemoaned how “our land of opportunity” is being turned into “a land of inequality” where “Main Street struggles, while Wall Street soars”.

“Tell me how it is, that not a single Wall Street CEO was convicted of a crime related to the 2008 economic meltdown. Not a single one,” said the man who, in his spare time, is the lead singer and guitarist in an Irish rock band.

“Tell me how it is that you can get pulled over for a broken tail light in our country, but if you wreck the nation’s economy you are untouchable.”

O’Malley took a swing at two of his rival presidential contenders for their close ties to Wall Street.

“Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest repeat-offending investment banks in America. Recently, the CEO of Goldman Sachs let his employees know that he’d be just fine with either Bush or Clinton. I bet he would,” said O’Malley to laughs from the crowd.

“Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street. The presidency is not some crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.”

Comprehensive immigration reform, a higher minimum wage, the right to organise as a trade union, affordable college, tackling climate change – O’Malley’s policies tick the right boxes on the liberal checklist.

But his populist rhetoric, well road-tested on trips to the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, has not gained much traction for the relatively unknown governor of a mid-Atlantic state in the shadow of Clinton's large national profile.

O’Malley is being outflanked by Sanders, who announced his candidacy last month, on the Democratic left.

A poll by Quinnipiac University on Thursday sent support for Sanders up to 15 per cent, while O'Malley remains stuck at 1 per cent. Both trailed Clinton at 57 per cent. She has not scored lower than 54 per cent in a poll this year; O'Malley has never scored higher than 3 per cent.

Former presidential candidate Gary Hart said there are striking parallels between O'Malley's position in the polls now and when he ran against former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984, coming from underdog to missing out marginally to Mondale for the nomination.

Hart (78) is returning the favour from when a 20-year-old O’Malley worked on that campaign. He believes the generational gap with Clinton will play in his favour, particularly when she must defend the long Clinton record over a 25-year period.

Clean slate

O’Malley, in contrast, “has a chance to work from a clean slate”, he said.

“He has a much freer hand than secretary Clinton has; he is a new generation, practically a full generation coming on behind her, and thus a fresh look at the realities of the next five, 10, 25 years,” said Hart.

“So I think he has a much better chance to define a future for America than Mrs Clinton does.”

Hart believes that pivoting on past positions will hurt Clinton.

“She has an amazing ability to change directions almost overnight. We will see whether or not that works. It is called redefinition,” he said.

“She has to justify why she was taking one position five or 10 or 15 years ago and is taking a different position. It is not just clever politics; it gets to the question of character.”

O’Malley has his own challenges in some areas. One protester, Andrew Fair (30), holding a “NO’Malley” placard outside Saturday’s rally, took issue with O’Malley pushing through casinos as Maryland governor when he previously opposed them.

"O'Malley has to overcome this perception that he is a made-for-TV candidate and that he is a genuine and viable candidate," said Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

Sanders, meanwhile, has been talking about inequality, the corrosive role of money in politics and the middle class his whole life.

“If people are uneasy with the Clinton campaign and whether she is true when she makes statements about what she will do, they are going to go for someone like Sanders who seems to many voters, whether they like him or not, to be the real deal,” said Zelizer.

Some progressives, seeing Clinton as the only potential nominee, are plumping for Sanders in the hope it will drag her further to the left.

The civil unrest over aggressive policing and the death of black man Freddie Gray in police custody in April hasn't helped O'Malley. This was reflected in the small but vocal group of protesters who heckled him during his announcement speech.

“What happened in Baltimore right as he was trying to make his case – that he was the progressive alternative – really hurt that message,” said Zelizer.

O’Malley’s supporters say it’s unfair to tie the violence to his zero-tolerance, statistic-driven crackdown on crime when he was mayor eight years ago. Equally, they say that he can challenge Clinton.

"There was a little-known governor from Arkansas who ended up being president not too long ago," said Eric Andersen, a supporter at Saturday's launch.

Sitting among other buzzing supporters after the campaign launch, Mrs O’Malley has seen her son elected against the odds before and believes he can do it again, this time in a US presidential campaign.

“Anybody would have to have bravery and courage to even think about doing something like that,” she said. “But there are a lot of people who can gripe and complain but they don’t do anything.”

She sees the O’Malley 2016 campaign being similar to his 1977 class elections, just on a grander scale.

“Much the same thing,” she says with a wry smile.