O’Malley is In

Martin O'Malley has officially announced that he is running for President:

Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley blasted social injustice and Wall Street excesses as he launched a White House bid on Saturday, casting himself as a younger, more liberal alternative to Democratic Party frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

“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,” said O’Malley, opening his 2016 presidential campaign with a rally at a waterfront park in downtown Baltimore.

O’Malley, who has aggressively courted his party’s liberal wing, began his political career in Baltimore, first as a member of city council and then as mayor.

Decrying big banks as having been behind the financial crisis of 2008, O’Malley singled out Goldman Sachs for particular criticism. He said Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein recently told his employees that “he’d be just fine” with either Republican Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton as president after the November 2016 election.

“Well, I’ve got news for the bullies of Wall Street,” O’Malley said. “The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families.”

Hillary Clinton is the wife of former President Bill Clinton while Jeb Bush, who has not yet formally announced his candidacy but is already considered a leading contender among Republican hopefuls, is son and brother of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Signs at O’Malley’s rally promised he would provide “new leadership,” but in fact he faces an uphill battle against former secretary of state Clinton, who consistently tops opinion polls to be the party’s nominee, and who enjoys national name recognition.

The nickel tour of Martin O'Malley:

• I met him once, and he is VERY charismatic.
• He has never really run on ideology, instead presenting himself as a pragmatist.
• As chief executive, both as Mayor of Baltimore and as Governor of Maryland, he got high marks as a manager.
• He abolished the death penalty, got gay marriage passed, and he has been strong on protecting the Chesapeake Bay.
• He's the youngest Democrat in the race by at least 15 years
• He is less tightly tied to Wall Street than Clinton (not hard)

I think that the biggest impact on the Democratic nomination processes will be to give the press to further curtail their already meager (and dismissive) coverage of Bernie Sanders.

I prefer him to Clinton, but I prefer Sanders to O'Malley.