Justin's Political Corner

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) said he’s considering a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 — and will spend the latter half of this year focusing on whether a White House bid is feasible.
 

“By the second half of this year, I need to be spending a lot more energy and time giving serious consideration and preparation to what if anything I might have to offer should I decide to run for president in 2016,” O’Malley, 50, told the Baltimore Sun’s editorial board on Wednesday. 

“The primary reason I think that my name has been mentioned occasionally in the company of such greats as Hillary Clinton, great public servants such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden is because of the accomplishments that we’ve had and the effectiveness that we’ve had through two administrations here in Baltimore and also at the state,” O’Malley added. 

“And so over the course and especially the latter half of this year, I need to properly allocate the attention, the time, the thought power, the brain power necessary to give the serious consideration to that weighty responsibility that it deserves.”

O’Malley, who is serving his second term as governor, just completed a legislative session in Annapolis that included passage of a new gun law that imposes some of the toughest restrictions in the nation. 

The bill mandates fingerprinting for people purchasing handguns, bans dozens of types of semiautomatic rifles and imposes a 10-round limit on magazines.

That gun bill and other legislation approved during O’Malley’s administration — including the legalization of gay marriage and the approval of in-state tuition to young illegal immigrants — are highly popular among Democratic primary voters. 

O’Malley also touts Maryland’s decision to repeal the death penalty and the imposition of higher gasoline taxes to pay for transportation infrastructure as achievements that could endear him to Democrats. 

“For the last 90 days I’ve been very much focused and very much absorbed with the very difficult things that we had to get done in this session,” O’Malley told the Sun. 

But O’Malley, though well known in Democratic circles, has a low national profile. 

A survey by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling earlier this month found O’Malley with just 1 percent support among Democrats for the 2016 nomination. 

O’Malley was viewed favorably by 10 percent of those polled, and unfavorably by 12 percent. But fully 78 percent of voters weren’t sure. 

H/T: The Hill 

Hillary Clinton would be “the ideal Democratic presidential candidate in 2016,” sweeping her party’s primary and besting potential Republican candidates other than Chris Christie, according to the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

The secretary of state has a 54 percent favorable rating among registered voters in polling released Thursday, with 39 percent viewing her unfavorably. Among Democrats, those numbers were 79 percent favorable to 15 percent unfavorable.

She led a poll of possible Democratic primary candidates by an imposing margin, garnering a majority 57 percent support. Vice President Joe Biden came in at a distant second, with 16 percent, while seven other prospective candidates, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, all failed to break 5 percent.

Clinton also would lead three possible GOP candidates — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) — by margins of 14 percentage points. A matchup against Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom she edged 44 percent to 42 percent, could be much closer.

The 2016 Republican primary may be a challenge for Christie, who tied for fourth among possible 2016 Republican nominees. Christie was more popular nationally with Democrats than with Republicans in the PPP survey.

Rubio was the most popular among Republicans, with 21 percent of GOP support, followed by Ryan at 16 percent, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 15 percent, and Christie and Bush at 14 percent each. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Texas Gov. Rick Perry all saw single-digit support.

With Clinton and Biden excluded from the Democratic field, 40 percent of primary voters were undecided. Cuomo and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts took the top places, with 19 percent and 16 percent respectively, with O’Malley, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer trailing.

h/t: Huffington Post

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will endorse gay marriage, sources close to the former first lady have said.

According to POLITICO.com, Clinton will join her husband, President Bill Clinton, and daughter, Chelsea Clinton, in endorsing marriage equality after she leaves the Obama administration.

Her circle has “indicated privately that she feels like … because of her role as the country’s chief diplomat that it was appropriate for her to stay out of this,” one source said, adding that “she will end up with the rest of the clan.”

POLITICO notes that Clinton “remains the biggest-name Democratic 2016 presidential hopeful who has yet to take a position in support of gay marriage.”

Clinton, who has strongly spoken out in favor of LGBT rights and cheered passage of marriage equality in New York, last weighed in on the issue in a profile for gay glossy The Advocate last year.

h/t: OnTopMag.com

The odds are already being set for a Hillary Clinton campaign for the White House in 2016 – even though the secretary of state has said repeatedly that she will not run again.

Barack Obama’s re-election set off a new conversation on Wednesday about Democratic prospects for the next presidential election, with Clinton’s name inevitably top of the list.

The vice-president, Joe Biden, is another contender. Biden, who turns 70 this month, was once ruled out as a possible successor because of his age. But he has been joking about his plans for 2016 on the campaign trail, telling reporters on election day that he thought he might get another chance to vote for himself.

However, Clinton, who plans to step down from the state department in the new year, remains the top choice of many Democrats. Bookmakers on Wednesday gave odds ranging from 5-2 to 7-1 against Clinton winning office in 2016.

Her approval ratings are inching towards 70%, her highest in 20 years in political life. Before the attack in Benghazi in which Chris Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, was killed, there was broad consensus that Clinton had done a good job. “I don’t think there is anyone out there who doesn’t think Hillary Clinton is an extremely successful secretary of state. She is right up there in the upper tier of modern secretaries of state,” said David Rothkopf, chief executive of Foreign Policy magazine.

Clinton has amassed a global following thanks to her peripatetic existence over the last four years, and she enjoys a huge reservoir of goodwill – and, some would say, guilt and regret – among those who remember her gritty fight against Obama in the primaries in 2008.

H/T: guardian.co.uk

With President Barack Obama’s surprisingly listless performance in the presidential debate Wednesday night, the stars are coming closer into alignment for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon.

His path to the White House would be ever so much easier if Obama were to lose in November.

Most Missourians seem oblivious to the fact that Nixon is on the short list for potential Democratic nominees in 2016. Maybe it’s because we tend to think of presidents as larger-than-life characters, and we know Nixon too well to think of him that way. He’s been around forever.

He first ran statewide in 1988. He ran for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Jack Danforth. He got clobbered.

But that was all right. Nixon was only 32. He was just learning.

Four years later, he became attorney general, and he has been with us ever since. After serving as attorney general for 16 years, he successfully ran for governor in 2008.

If he wins re-election in November, and he’s heavily favored to do so, he will be term-limited out in 2016.

He will be 60 years old.

That’s a nice age for a would-be president.

With his history of success in a Southern red state, he’d have an impressive resume.

Who else is on the short list? Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York is frequently mentioned. But can a liberal from New York win a national election?

Hillary Clinton is a possibility, but she’ll be 69, and that’s getting a little old for somebody running for a first term.

In that regard, Biden will be 74.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia are often touted as possibilities.

Maybe the country will look toward a man from De Soto, a Methodist, a lifelong hunter, a governor who never raised taxes, a conservative Democrat who consistently won in a red state and managed to co-exist with a Republican legislature. Sixty years old. Seasoned, but not yet old.

ST. LOUIS • The city’s chances of hosting the 2016 Democratic National Convention may hinge on Missouri’s transforming itself back into a contentious political battleground.

In her race, McCaskill is running as a moderate Democrat against U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican and a strong conservative who has been told by his own party’s establishment to quit the race after controversial comments on rape and abortion.

In the last two election cycles, Democrats have focused on states that have morphed into battlegrounds because of demographic shifts.

Until 2008, North Carolina hadn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1976, when the state sided with Jimmy Carter. Through the decades, North Carolina transformed itself from a largely rural state into one dominated by banking and research professionals. In 1980, it had 13 electoral votes. Today it has 15.

By contrast, Missouri has lost influence and electoral sway, thus hurting its convention chances. St. Louis has hosted four Democratic conventions, the last in 1916 when Woodrow Wilson was nominated for president. Missouri had 18 electoral votes that year. Today it has 10.

With its standard bearer being the nation’s first black president, the Democratic Party has tried to showcase a minority-friendly image.

Missouri is about 83 percent white. North Carolina is 66 percent white and 21 percent black. Colorado, which hosted the Democrats in 2008, is 19 percent Hispanic. Missouri’s Hispanic population is just 3 percent.

Ken Warren, a political science professor at St. Louis University, said Missouri’s lack of diversity will hurt St. Louis’ chances.

“North Carolina, for example, has become more yuppified,” Warren said. “These metro people tend to be a lot more liberal. Missouri is an old, traditional state. The demographics aren’t that appealing to Democrats.”

Obama barely lost Missouri in 2008, but the state has slipped further from his reach in the following years, according to polling data. Still, some Democrats hold a sliver of hope that it could reverse course for Obama.

h/t: STLtoday.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If Cory Booker decides to run for president one day, he already has a personal connection to the first caucus state of Iowa.

The mayor of Newark, N.J., told about 60 Iowa delegates during a Democratic convention gathering that he was not only “a son of New Jersey but a grandson of Iowa.” His 94-year-old grandmother was born in Des Moines, Booker said, and his family had ties to a now abandoned south-central Iowa mining town called Buxton, where many black families moved “to make a hope and a dream become a reality.”

“This is the state that brought my family from deep poverty to the middle class. … This is the state that will determine our destiny,” Booker said of Iowa, pleading with the delegates for an all-hands-on-deck effort to re-elect President Barack Obama.

For Booker and a slate of rising stars in the Democratic Party, the national convention in Charlotte amounts to a try-out before local activists, financial donors and well-connected political heavyweights from early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire and perennial battlegrounds such as Florida. Some already have established political reputations and a large network of donors, while others are trying to raise their national profiles.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the most prominent Democrat in the 2016 equation, is half a world away, traveling on an 11-day, six-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The former New York senator’s popularity has grown steadily since her primary loss to Obama in 2008, but she has repeatedly denied that she’s interested in running for president in four years. Nevertheless, the Clinton brand is on display this week, with former President Bill Clinton nominating Obama on Wednesday night.

Obama’s running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, has not ruled out another presidential run and speaks Thursday night, shortly before Obama’s address. The vice president, who would be 73 by 2016, arrived in Charlotte on Tuesday and planned to attend a private event Thursday night with top Obama donors at the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Another 2016 contender, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was keeping a low profile. Cuomo, whose sky-high approval ratings and political pedigree have generated talk of a future presidential bid, was traveling to Charlotte for Obama’s address on Thursday but limiting his public events to a morning speech to his home state’s delegation breakfast.

Up-and-coming Democrats like Booker, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa were making the rounds before state delegations and at private events, introducing themselves to activists and trying to make a good first impression.

he head of the Democratic Governors Association, O’Malley appeared before Iowa’s delegation Wednesday morning, noting that he worked in the state for Colorado Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential campaign in 1984 and 1988. “I traveled all around the state – all 99 counties. Iowa is a great state,” he said. O’Malley recently snared a prime speaking role in Iowa next month, headlining Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual fundraising steak fry, adding to speculation about a future run.

But the Maryland governor’s convention week got off to a rocky start on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, when he was asked if Americans were better off than they were four years ago. “No,” O’Malley said, exposing a rift with Obama’s campaign. O’Malley argued that the more pressing issue was that the nation is “not as well off as we were before George Bush brought us the Bush job losses, the Bush recession, the Bush deficits, the series of desert wars.”

Warner, who made millions in the cellular phone industry, joked to the Florida delegation that he was the only politician who would ask them to “please leave your cellphones on” during his speech. A former Virginia governor, Warner offered a firm defense of Obama’s policies and efforts to revive the economy.

“America is better off today than it was four years ago with this president,” said Warner, who spoke to the Iowa delegation on Wednesday.

Klobuchar also spoke to Iowa activists on Wednesday, highlighting her close ties to her neighboring state. Asked if she was considering a future White House bid, she said, flatly, “No. I love my job right now.”

After Villaraigosa wrapped up his speech to the Iowa delegation on Monday, organizers presented the mayor with a gift bag that included a map of Iowa and announced he would headline the state party’s annual fundraiser, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, next month. “I’m coming back,” he beamed.

The 43-year-old Booker, a possible challenger to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in 2013, met with both the Iowa and Florida delegations, a sign of his growing national reputation. A regular on cable television and Sunday news shows, the mayor riled some Democrats in May when he criticized Obama’s critique of private equity firm Bain Capital, which was co-founded by Romney.

But by Tuesday, all appeared to be forgiven. Booker, a platform co-chair, energized the arena in his address on the opening night, telling delegates, “We are a nation with liberty and justice for all,” prompting chants of “USA!”

H/T: Huffington Post