Martin O’Malley is positioning himself as the liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.
In doing so, the former Maryland governor is claiming the populist, anti-Wall Street rhetoric of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the favorite of the grassroots Left.
Warren’s refusal to run has left progressive Democrats without a credible left-wing challenger to Clinton, who is seen as too close to Wall Street and big business. Among the thin bench of potential Democratic 2016 candidates, O’Malley has moved in recent weeks to fill that void.
O’Malley took a hard left turn against Wall Street Friday in Iowa, the first caucus state of the the presidential nomination.
Speaking to the Scott County Democrats, O’Malley asserted that “we must not allow another Wall Street meltdown to bring down the hardworking families of our country.
“We have a responsibility to put that sort of repeat performance beyond the realm of the possible by reinstating Glass-Steagall and holding people accountable when they break the law,” O’Malley said.
Glass-Steagall is the law that for much of the 20th century placed a wall between commercial and investment banking. The law was repealed under President Bill Clinton, and Warren has championed its reinstatement.
Many liberals favor tougher measures to tighten regulation on big banks, and have criticized the Obama administration and Department of Justice for not prosecuting individual bank executives involved in fraudulent activity before the financial crisis.
O’Malley’s remarks, which were broadcast on C-SPAN, contained another implicit rebuke of the Clinton family. In touting the “power of our moral principles,” O’Malley claimed that “triangulation is not a strategy that will move America forward.”
Triangulation, the political maneuver of moving to the middle of two parties to gain support from both sides, is a term associated with the Clinton administration.
O’Malley has long cast himself as a liberal technocrat with a record of legislative and executive accomplishments, rather than a populist.
But as he’s prepared for months to run for president, he’s also criticized the Obama administration and the Democratic establishment with jabs that would play well with the liberal base.
Amid last summer’s stream of unaccompanied children from Central America to the Texas border, O’Malley warned that deporting the children would be sending them “back to certain death.”
The White House objected to O’Malley’s comments, but he stood by them with the explanation that “we are Americans.”
In November, O’Malley came out forcefully against allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to be built, a subject on which Clinton had not taken a stance.
Then, in February, O’Malley penned a New York Times op-ed warning that the Obama administration’s decision to allow oil and gas drilling off the East Coast was a “big mistake.”
Last week, he further distanced himself from Obama’s policies with an op-ed in the Des Moines Register calling for greater accountability for banks. In addition to saying that the biggest Wall Street banks should be broken up, O’Malley criticized the Obama Department of Justice for allowing companies to settle financial crisis-era lawsuits without admitting guilt, and for allow executives in charge of banks involved in wrongdoing to remain in place.
But while the 52-year-old former mayor of Baltimore has tried to establish himself as the populist liberal while visiting Iowa and New Hampshire, he has avoided directly challenging Clinton.
Given the chance earlier this month to criticize Clinton for using a private email service during her tenure as secretary of state, O’Malley turned down the opportunity.
When asked whether he was satisfied with Clinton’s excuse for using the private email account, O’Malley deflected the question, telling reporters “I’ll leave that to you to figure out.”
Clinton is the prohibitive frontrunner in the Democratic primary, leading all comers by roughly 45 percent in most polls. O’Malley has registered only low single-digit support in recent polls of national voters.
