Martin O’Malley pins hope on Iowa caucuses.
Strives to build momentum.
IOWA CITY — Martin O’Malley makes his way to the back of a crowded pub on a rainy night. He grabs a chair and climbs up.
“I’m running for president of the United States and I need your help,” he says, holding his right hand on his chest. He promises not to talk long. “We are going to do Q&A because that is the Iowa way.”. .
Advisers believe O’Malley, 52, will emerge as the more electable alternative to the 73-year-old Sanders, particularly after voters realize that both are running on a similar populist message.
"I think Bernie is a bit of a stalking horse,” said George Appleby, O’Malley’s state chairman. “He’s putting those issues on the table.”
Appleby and O’Malley both know well how a low-polling candidate can catch fire in Iowa. In 1983, both organized for Gary Hart, another long-shot candidate, who saw his chances lifted by finishing second in the 1984 Iowa caucuses.
“He knows how to run in Iowa,” Appleby said, as he stood in a kitchen while O’Malley spoke in the living room at a Marshalltown house party. “Coming out and doing this over and over.”. .
“The thing about O’Malley is he gets things done and he does them with respect,” said Sarah Stutler, a preschool teacher who has heard him several times, including in Mount Vernon Thursday. “He is Biden-esque,” she added, comparing him to the vice president. . .
O’Malley stresses his relative youth in the field and his 15 years of executive experience. Progressive highlights of his eight years as governor include ending the death penalty, allowing illegal immigrants to pay lower in-state university tuition, expanding gun control laws, raising the minimum wage, and approving same-sex marriage. . .
In the Iowa pub, one woman asked a lengthy and detailed question about his law enforcement record.
“As mayor of Baltimore you oversaw an era of mass arrests,” she said, recounting the hundreds of thousands of people arrested on his watch.
He responded by saying that violent crime was a scourge when he took over, and it plummeted on his watch.
“You weren’t in Baltimore in 1999,’’ O’Malley said, “but I was.”
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