Democrat Martin O’Malley delivered a kind of one-two punch in his presidential candidacy announcement in Baltimore on Saturday. On one hand, his speech was nearly all about economic populism. On the other, the event itself, apart from O’Malley’s address, was about identity politics. The combined effect was a presidential rollout that said the former Maryland governor can compete with any Democrat when it comes to taxing the rich and breaking up the big banks, and at the same time can outrun Hillary Clinton when it comes to gay marriage and immigration.
The identity politics came first. As the event, held on a hot morning in Baltimore’s Federal Hill Park, got underway, Yvette Lewis, a former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, announced that four speakers would introduce O’Malley. Actually, they didn’t introduce him as much as lay the groundwork for O’Malley’s appearance.
The first speaker was black, gay, and an illegal immigrant. The young man, Jonathan Jayes-Green, told the crowd that his family came to the United States from Panama legally — “in search of the American Dream” — when he was 13 years old. “But our path to that American Dream became complicated when our visa expired and we became undocumented,” Jayes-Green said.
As what immigration officials call a visa overstay, Green could not receive in-state tuition for college and was not eligible for scholarships. “That’s the reason I joined the movement,” Jayes-Green explained. And that’s when he became a Martin O’Malley fan. “When undocumented students like myself were fighting for the opportunity to pursue the American Dream, Gov. O’Malley had our back,” Jayes-Green said.
And then: “When LGBT individuals like myself were fighting for the opportunity and the right to marry someone we love someday, Gov. O’Malley had our back.” O’Malley’s support for both the Dream Act and gay marriage cemented Jayes-Green’s loyalty. On election day 2012, when both policies became law in Maryland, Jayes-Green said he “felt the entire state validating my identities.”
One might think that with Jayes-Green’s appearance, O’Malley had covered the gay marriage issue. Actually, no. The next speaker, Johns Hopkins student Joseph Weinstein-Avery, stressed that he was just an everyday Baltimore guy — “I love my Orioles and my Ravens” — going to school and hoping to enter public service some day. “I’m a grandson, a son, a nephew and a friend,” Weinstein-Avery said. “I’m your next door neighbor’s kid — all thanks to the job that my two moms did raising me.”
Weinstein-Avery paused a moment to let the message sink in, and to wait for applause. “My mothers, Hallie and Shannon, raised me to be who I am today,” he continued. “But until a few years ago, in the eyes of the law, their love was recognized as something less than a heterosexual couple. Until Gov. O’Malley championed same-sex marriage in Maryland, they didn’t have the right to express their love as so many other couples do.”
“I’m here today because Martin O’Malley led the fight for marriage equality in Maryland, and he will do the same for every state and every couple in this great nation,” Weinstein-Avery concluded.
The message was unmistakable: While Hillary Clinton was still “evolving” on gay marriage, Martin O’Malley was making it the law in Maryland. And while Clinton was still voicing reservations about illegal immigration, O’Malley was welcoming anyone who chose to ignore the limitations of a visa.
When it came time for O’Malley himself to speak, the references to gay marriage and immigration were brief and perfunctory. That work had been done, which left O’Malley free to stress the economic issues he believes will define the campaign. He began by saying there is a “growing injustice” in the United States today, one that “did not happen by chance, nor was it the result of global forces somehow beyond our control.”
“Powerful, wealthy special interests here at home have used our government to create — in our own country — an economy that is leaving a majority of our people behind,” O’Malley said. “An economy where a majority of our people are unheard, unseen, unneeded, and left to conclude that their lives and labors are literally worth less today than they were yesterday, and will be worth less still tomorrow.”
“Tell me how it is, that not a single Wall Street CEO was convicted of a crime related to the 2008 economic meltdown,” O’Malley said. “Not. A. Single. One. 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.”
After ticking off a few agenda items — “We need to prosecute cheats, we need to reinstate Glass-Steagall, and if a bank is too big to fail without wrecking our nation’s economy, then it needs to be broken up before it breaks us again” — O’Malley took care to connect all the bad stuff to Hillary Clinton. “Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest repeat-offending investment banks in America,” O’Malley said. “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. Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street: The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families. It is a sacred trust to be earned from the people of the United States, and exercised on behalf of the people of the United States. The only way we are going to rebuild the American Dream is if we re-take control of our own American government!”
From people like Hillary Clinton, that is.
All in all, it was an impressive performance from a candidate who has yet to make a dent of any sort in the polls. The question, with O’Malley seeking to gain some of the same turf as Clinton, on one side, and Bernie Sanders on the other, is whether all that careful positioning will ever do O’Malley any good.
