Martin O’Malley doubled down on his frequent campaign theme of being the only “lifelong Democrat” in the race Friday.
“I think that when President Obama was running for re-election, I was glad to step up and work very hard for him,” the former Maryland governor said to Rachel Maddow at Friday’s MSNBC Democratic forum.
“Senator Sanders was trying to find someone to primary him,” O’Malley said regarding his rival Bernie Sanders. “I am Democrat. I am a lifelong Democrat.”
Sanders was receptive to the idea of finding a primary challenger to Obama in the last election.
“I think one of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the Right is that there is no primary opposition to him,” Sanders told radio host Thom Hartmann in 2011.
O’Malley has used this refrain about being a lifelong member of his party often — it still being true when Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee were in the Democratic race.
“I’m not a former independent. I’m not a former Republican. I believe in the party of Franklin Roosevelt. The party of John F. Kennedy,” O’Malley added.
Sanders had a career outside of the Democratic Party, with Vermont’s Liberty Union, and spent much of his political career as independent, considered left of the Democratic mainstream. Hillary Clinton canvassed for Barry Goldwater in 1964 and was a member of the College Republicans before somewhat converting at Wellesley.
Chaffee was a Republican critic of President George W. Bush, before becoming an independent and most recently a Democrat. Webb was a Republican and Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy before becoming a Democratic senator in 2006.
