Then-Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has his speech interpreted into sign language during Sen. Tom Harkin’s Hall of Fame dinner on Friday, June 20, 2014 in Des Moines. (The Daily Iowan/Sergio Flores)
Martin O’Malley can work a room, they say: Whether it’s an expansive hotel ballroom with several hundred in attendance or a dimly lit restaurant and bar over pizza.
He’s careful and precise in his articulation of speech and “someone you can believe in.”
He packs the executive leadership often craved by presidential voters: eight years at the helm of Maryland government and before that as mayor of Baltimore, where, supporters say, he reversed the Eastern industrial city’s decline.
RELATED: O’Malley cozies up with Quad City Democrats
Then there’s his dashing smile, an appetite for tech (he’s an avid user of Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter), and youthful age.
Oh, and he’s made trips to Iowa a top priority, something that presumed Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t.
O’Malley has the ability to captivate the nation and rise from a relatively unknown to a political juggernaut as John F. Kennedy did in the 1960s, more than 50 interviews with The Daily Iowan show.
“He’s a new breed of Democrats,” Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba, an Obama supporter, said following a private lunch with O’Malley on March 21.
President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline, are greeted by an enthusiastic crowd upon their arrival at Dallas Love Field on Nov. 22, 1963. (AP Photo)
O’Malley has slowly but surely chipped away at Rodham Clinton’s political gravitational pull, climbing from a inadequate public speaker to prime presidential product, should he announce a Democratic run.
Diane Bolte has watched O’Malley mature, even before the closing of the 2014 midterms, when she saw him at a fundraiser in Clinton.
“I’m ready for somebody different,” said Bolte, a 2nd District Democratic Central Committee Executive Board member, wincing when asked if somebody different meant an alternative to Rodham Clinton. “He’s somebody you can believe in.”
RELATED: 6 takeaways: O’Malley’s first visit to Iowa of 2015
He faces an increasingly less-steep climb against Rodham Clinton and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, according to the interviews.
But if polls are any indication, O’Malley is barely a blip on the radar.
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted last month showed Rodham Clinton with a commanding lead among individuals labeled as “likely caucus goers,” garnering 61 percent. Warren, who has said repeatedly she will not seek the presidency, came in second place with 19 percent.
Fewer than 1 percent of poll respondents said they would vote for O’Malley.
RELATED: Martin O’Malley increasing Iowa ground game for 2016 run
He has far and away out-Iowa’d the man many here want him to become.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley speaks with guests at the 2015 Scott County Democrats’s “Red White and Blue” dinner in Davenport on Friday, March 20, 2015. (The Daily Iowan/Quentin Misiag)
He made a big splash here during his first return to Iowa in 2015, logging nearly 400 miles of travel and appearing at more than a half-dozen events, the Scott County Democrats’s Red, White, and Blue dinner, a Davenport Irish pub, a small town drop-in at Tipton, a visit to Des Moines, and a trendy Council Bluffs eatery.
Presidential historian and political pundit Tom Whalen, who specializes in the tenure and assassination of JFK, said the two have the same charisma, particularly in relation to domestic policies such as income equality.
O’Malley has worked to establish himself as a crisis manager while governor and mayor, as JFK did during the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis, Whalen said.
Whalen said O’Malley leads JFK’s early presidential career in at least one definitive area: speech delivery.
“JFK wasn’t really JFK until he gave that famous inaugural speech,” he said.
___________________________________________________________________
Martin O’Malley
Age: 52
Education: Catholic University of America, University of Maryland-Baltimore
Family: Wife Katie, 4 children
Political experience: Maryland Governor (Jan. 2007-Jan. 2015), Baltimore Mayor (Dec. 1999-Jan. 2007)
Don’t you democrats ever get tired of the “cult of personality” tactics used – endlessly – to sell you on a candidate?
Didn’t you learn your lesson with the empty suit, epically unqualified obama?
Exactly!
Which Hollywood starlet is he cheating on his wife with? After all, if he’s the new JFK shouldn’t he be messing around?
He is rumored to have father twins with a former local TV anchor.
He is rumored to have fathered twins with a former local TV anchor.
Actually, I think O’Malley and JFK do have something in common…they are both brain dead.
Trust me, he is NO JFK! He taxed Maryland into poverty, even taxed the rain!
exactly Anna!
Don’t you Republics ever get sick of your side’s candidates frequent mentions of St. Ronald of Reagan? Talk about a cult of personality. Sheesh.
Meanwhile, you Republicans want to put Reagan’s face on everything and your candidate’s cannot give a speech without mentioning him.
JFK – by today’s standards – was a hard core right wing conservative who screwed around on his wife.
Are you sure this is the comparison you want to make?
Wow, that’s harsh but probably accurate. However, I see Martin as a flaming left wing socialist. SO I don’t even see the comparison at all.
You either don’t know many hard core right wing conservatives or much about JFK.
Socialism/marxism are poison to any society, they take away the will of people, their drive to advance, lead to oppression by the idiots that foist it on a society, leading to depression, early deaths, hopelessness and despair for all under the fist of these most evil ideologies. Just look at Detroit and Philidelphia.
These are the words of JFK:
This administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to be enacted and become effective in 1963. I am not talking about a quickie or a temporary tax cut which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm to ease some temporary complaint. The federal government’s most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities of private expenditures.
When consumers purchase more goods, plants use more of their capacity, men are hired instead of laid off, investment increases, and profits are high. Corporate tax rates must also be cut to increase incentives and the availability of investment capital. The government has already taken major steps this year to reduce business tax liability and to stimulate the modernization, replacement, and expansion of our productive plant and equipment.
Our true choice is not between tax reduction on the one hand and the avoidance of large federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits. Surely the lesson of the last decade is that budget deficits are not caused by wild-eyed spenders, but by slow economic growth and periodic recessions, and any new recession would break all deficit records. In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low. And the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.
Clearly words you would hear from a conservative today.
I can find no record of him being a war hero, or of any military service at all. He’s nothing like JFK! The Dems would throw JFK out of the party today for not being communist enough… Under the Constitution the office isn’t very important,. think of the damage that could have been prevented over the last three decades if americans confined the POTUS to their legitimate powers!!- google – the 12 powers of the president
He is a career politician….he has NEVER held a private sector job.
Very clever. Trying to compare O’Malley to JFK. Anything to give the Democrats the edge huh?
No comparison.
So this guy might be the new JFK? Do you mean he is a serial cheater on his wife? Do you mean he is a tax cutter? Do you mean he will nominate a pro life supreme court justice like JFK did with Byron White? Do you mean he will have Congress issue the currency bypassing the federal reserve like JFK did with executive order 11110?
I guess you have never actually read EO 11110, or you would not be such a crazy conspiracy theorist…either that or you just choose to ignore the truth that by signing the EO, Kennedy actually had the Treasury Sec issue Federal Notes instead of Silver Certificates.
So how is this a conspiracy theory? Please explain.
O’malley left my state of Maryland 1B 600 m in debt. Made our state a sanctuary haven for illegal aliens, raised our taxes, (even including a RAIN TAX). People, you don’t want this radical leftist/socialist believe me. We were glad when his term ended.
I agree Jim and QUENTIN MISIAG you know what of you speak in regard to the POS OweMalley unless you lived it in MD…how dare you even suggest the comparison to JFK….shakes my head….you lil punk know nothing!
Yep, looks like it’s time for the media to start creating the next democrat legend. If O’Malley had an ‘REP’ behind his name, he’d be satan. You clowns are pathetic . . . .
O’Malley is all show and no substance… As Gov of MD, he benefitted from the fact that MD is effectively a one Party State that is ruled from left by those who cater to the voters in downtown Baltimore and the very left leaning suburbs outside DC (Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties). The fact that MD has now a Rebublican Gov for only the second time since Spiro Agnew shows how the left knows they can usually get away with putting any baffoon in Annapolis – its only when they back a seriously lacking candidate do the Republican votes in the rest of the state matter.
You are forgetting Bob Erlich
Hate to tell you but JFK would not consider himself a democrat today. And the demcrats would not accept JFK. You lying A Holes are kissing Castro’s a$$, and turning America into a third world socialist sh!thole. No JFK is no more a democrat today the Marco Rubio is. And Rubio is a closer comparison to JFK and his ideals then any demo socialist is..
According to reports, his record as Governor of Maryland is a disaster. He left the state in such a mess that his hand picked successor Lt. Governor lost to the GOP in a State the Dems routinely win by 20+ points.
Yeah, so let’s make him the Leader of the Free World!
Wasn’t Obama supposed to be the new JFK?
Quentin looks like he is about 20 years old. So, that means he was born about 30 years after JFK was killed. Quentin is not a student of history or else he would realize there was more to JFK. During WW2 he could have found a safe spot in the rear. Both Joe and John stepped up. Very few leaders in this country. A bunch of administrators an organizers but no leaders.
While abortion wasn’t hot button issue in th 60’s here is a quote from JFK:
“Now, on the question of limiting population: as you know the Japanese have been doing it very vigorously, through abortion, which I think would be repugnant to all Americans.”
Martin O’Malley supports federal funding of abortion.
Huge difference.
I live in Maryland. If you love high taxes, taxes on everything (including rain – look it up), super liberal progressive laws jammed down your throat and an incessant nanny-state government, then by all means vote for Owe’Malley.
The citizens of Maryland learned the hard way – this is a bluer than blue state yet we elected a republican governor over Owe’Malley’s hand picked LT Governor…
First it was “hope and change” and now it’s “someone you can believe in” – just keep it simple and bleat “two legs bad, four legs good” all the time.
Why no mention that as soon as he was term limited out dark blue Maryland elected a Republican governor to fix everything O’Malley screwed up in the state. Failure sure is a resume enhancer for dem candidates
O’Malley won’t win his home state. They chased him out of Maryland.
Quentin, for all that is Holy, please educate yourself on John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Anybody can “work” a room of their own sycophants, and a “dashing smile? A hyena has a dashing smile. O’Malley would pee his trousers if he had to meet up with Putin such as JFK met Krushchev as a young president in Vienna in 1961. I could go on and on but I don’t like to pile on.
Todays Democrats do not resemble JFK in the least. We have a President who has a warmer relationship with the Communist Dictator in Cuba than with the PM of Israel. Obama is closer in ideology to Lee Harvey Oswald than to JFK
LOL…NEW JFK? LET’S HOPE HE GETS SHOT TOO THEN…
JFK was the last non communist Democrat President and is nothing like the America hating democrats we have now.
Evil tax monster chased many companies, jobs and taxpayers from our state! He needs Taxaholics Anon… Avoid at all costs! Maryland may never recover from the high taxes and debt he left us!
“O’Malley knows how to work a room”? O’Malley knows how to work your wallet. He created 41 NEW taxes in Maryland, caused 8000 jobs to leave Maryland with his communist anti-business bullcrap, and gave 10s of thousands of Marylanders a reason to move out of the dying state. He will smile in your face while stealing your wallet.
And Obama was supposed to be Lincoln…
The left is all about cult of personality instead of principles.
Interesting comment from a party that wants to put Reagan’s face on everything, and whose politician’s cannot give a speech without mentioned St. Ronnie.