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Feature
O’Malley’s Tin Whistle
The ambitious governor of Maryland stumbles toward 2016.
(Page 2 of 2)
O’Malley’s hubris in picking fights with the Church while making a show of his Irish and Catholic heritage doesn’t surprise Newgent. “You will see pictures of him with ash on his forehead, and he can rattle off Irish poems,” he said. O’Malley knows that the complacent Maryland media, which is largely in his pocket in a one-party state, won’t make an issue of such hypocrisy. “He has never been held accountable,” says Newgent, who thinks that an O’Malley run for the presidency is likely. “He has the ego to do it. He has been running for president from his first day as a councilman.”
O’MALLEY WENT TO LAW SCHOOL and passed the bar, but his chief interest was always politics. He cut his teeth as an organizer in Gary Hart’s 1984 presidential campaign. Later he joined Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski’s office as a field director, before jumping into Baltimore politics as a city council member and then mayor. He married into the Curran family, a politically powerful Maryland clan. His wife, Catherine Curran, is a state district judge, and her father was the state’s attorney general for many years.
O’Malley is said to have been one of the inspirations for Tommy Carcetti, the fictional mayor of a crooked and crime-infested Baltimore in The Wire, an HBO show. But O’Malley resents the comparison. After an MSNBC host introduced him as “one of the real-life inspirations for the mayor of the hit TV show The Wire,” he replied testily: “I would take issue with whether or not I’m the inspiration for The Wire. I’m the antidote to The Wire.”
O’Malley is given to boasts about a cleaned-up Maryland that don’t hold up under scrutiny. As mayor of Baltimore, he bragged about a plummeting crime rate, but both Democrats and Republicans dismissed his claim as the product of flaky methodology. Similarly, his claim that Maryland tops the nation in quality of public education comes from the liberal publication Education Week, which uses as its principal criterion not educational achievement but the amount of money a state spends per pupil.
He proposed this year a new “genuine progress indicator” to measure economic growth in the state—an attempt to move away from hardheaded, measurable criteria toward vaguer indices of improvement, such as the amount of time Marylanders spend on “volunteer work” and the length of their commutes.
“This is a very disturbing development in Maryland if we are going to go and develop a whole new system to measure economic performance,” Jim Pettit of the group Change Maryland told the Capital Gazette. “There is a very touch-feely aspect to all of this.” Petit observed to the paper that O’Malley’s new standard wouldn’t include data from the Internal Revenue Service showing that people and businesses are fleeing the state. “According to Pettit, 36,400 jobs have been lost in the state since 2007, and the number of Fortune 500 companies has dropped from 11 to three in that same time,” reported the paper.
In their frequent TV appearances together, the head of the Republican Governors Association, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, has taken to needling O’Malley over the steady stream of Maryland businesses and residents moving to Virginia. After O’Malley told a radio interviewer that he would like to debate McDonnell, “followed immediately by a push-up contest,” McDonnell’s spokesman Tucker Martin said the governor didn’t have time, since “we’re just so busy helping the thousands of former Maryland residents who have recently moved to Virginia get situated.”
Maryland Democrats privately grumble that O’Malley has built up his national image as a progressive champion at their expense, pushing the state in directions more liberal than they would like. At a time of economic distress, he has pursued a largely frivolous agenda—the promotion of wind farms, the expansion of casino gambling, amnesty (he calls illegal immigrants “new Americans”), and gay marriage top the list—in hopes of ingratiating himself with coastal elites.
Typical of this lightweight style was his instruction to all members of his cabinet that they read a Rolling Stone interview with Bruce Springsteen. “I thought the clarity of language, the clarity of purpose, and the clarity of principle that came ringing through that interview, where Bruce Springsteen talked about the state of our nation, was something very powerful and insightful,” O’Malley told the press solemnly after the homework assignment made news.
But Marylanders don’t appear to view O’Malley as born to run for president. According to a poll conducted by the Washington Post in the fall, fewer than half of them approve of his job performance. Worse, only 22 percent of Maryland voters see him as a good potential president. It would seem that O’Malley’s march to 2016, with a dog whistle in one hand and a tin whistle in the other, has lost the beat.
About the Author
George Neumayr, a contributing editor to The American Spectator, is co-author, with Phyllis Schlafly, of the new book, No Higher Power: Obama’s War on Religious Freedom.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
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Joellen| 12.28.12 @ 8:08AM
This individual EXEMPLIFIES my comment to Schells "We are all Mayans Now". Here's a CINO (Catholic in name only) who adores Bubba Clinton who raped Juanita Broadwick, Hillary who has the blood of four Americans on her hands, Cuomo, another CINO, who pushed gay marriage on New Yorkers without a vote and, no one ever seems to remember this one, was in charge of HUD where millions of dollars are still not accounted for today; and the same with Cory, what happened to the monies donated for Newark Schools, Booker. This is your DEMOCRAT PARTY of today folks. And yet we'll get the deceivers who will come and try and re-write the history and scorn good people like President Reagan, Governors Walker and Sarah Palin, or Allan West, or the late Judge Bork, etc., etc.
Again, its all about relativity and boy do people like O'Malley wash in it. I just wish the American Catholic Bishops would finally call this hypocrisy out once and for all and start promoting the absolutes of Black & White by denouncing O'Malley, Cuomo, Pelosi, Biden and any other CINO in office who mocks and openly betrays their faith.
WRTolkas| 12.28.12 @ 8:46AM
Dear Joellen:
It will never happen. The Catholic Bishops are in bed, so to speak, with the Democratic Party.
As for O'Malley, the freebe and moral challenged electorate on both coasts are certain to vote him into the presidency. And as for me, I've just about given up. I'm hunkering down and stock-piling, awaiting when the whole experiment in freedom collapses.
Quartermaster| 12.28.12 @ 11:08AM
Because the Bishops won't formally excommunicate men like O'Malley, they just get more defiance and the RCC sinks more deeply into apostasy. But, you are right about the Bishops being in bed with the Dimocrats, and that's why they sink more deeply into apostasy with every passing day.
Brubaker| 12.28.12 @ 5:56PM
While I agree that excommunication of men like O'Malley is extremely unlikely, I'm not certain that it really matters much. There was a time, not so long ago, when the threat of excommunication carried real weight. I suspect that time has passed.
holmegm| 12.28.12 @ 9:31AM
Tin whistle doesn't need scare quotes. Fine Irish (and Scotch, and English) instrument.
Listen to one of the greats like Mary Bergin play it.
Don't blame the whistle for this guy :)
Derek Leaberry| 12.28.12 @ 9:39AM
As a resident of the hostage state of Maryland's Eastern Shore, I can attest that O'Malley thinks himself presidential material. He's moving even farther left for the 2016 Democratic primaries to keep pace with Andrew Cuomo. He's done well to push all the Left's pleasure buttons. O'Malley was instrumental in the passing of queer marriage in Maryland. He's raised taxes and spent heavily. He passed the toilet flush tax to please environmentalists. Now he is after the rarely used death penalty.
As with most modern Democrats, if something is degenerate or dishonorable or both, he is all for it, very intensely in his case. Martin O'Malley is a very bad man.
Otis, my man!| 12.28.12 @ 9:43AM
Yes, and even though he's just another left-wing jerk-off, if the MSM decides he's their man, his future is golden. He will have just as much chance at making President as the current anointed one. I think O'Malley is counting on this.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 12.28.12 @ 9:51AM
“Though he is far less talented and clever than the former president, O’Malley shares his easy extroversion. ‘He is not a bad guy to drink a beer with,’says a Maryland assemblyman, who chuckles at the pub performances of O’Malley’s March. ‘He has an Irish rock band. He likes to wear cut-off sweat shirts and T-shirts. He has a strong degree of narcissism.’”
A strong degree of narcissism is a characteristic O’Malley shares with the current POTUS. As O’Malley succeeded the historic first black mayor of Baltimore whose tenure was marred with numerous controversies and failures (Baltimore’ violent crime rate increased as the local economy tanked), perhaps he believes he can repeat his previous pattern of electoral success. It would be ironic if, in order to do so, he would first have to defeat Hillary (supposedly the more talented spouse of the more talented and clever former president) or Biden (who lacks O'Malley's musical talent and good looks, but is otherwise difficult to distinguish).
Moe Blotz| 12.28.12 @ 8:23PM
Too bad the band leader does not have the muscles to flaunt the "muscle T-shirt". Scrawny.
Drunken Sailor| 12.28.12 @ 10:18AM
Is it just me or does the Democrats future roster look vunerable, with a weak bench? To bad the GOP roster is in such shambles as the competition so far doesn't look very tough.
Quartermaster| 12.28.12 @ 11:12AM
Alas, both parties are deeply corrupt and represent only themselves.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 12.28.12 @ 11:14AM
There are many differences between the the Democrat bench and the Republican bench, and how they are treated (and not just by the media).
One would be how failure is regarded in the respective camps. Mark Sanford's adultery when revealed disqualified him from future Presidential ambition. If he was a Democrat, he would hve received a featured speech at the convention, like Bubba.
Larry Craig's wide stance in the Men's Room led to calls for his resignation, and his departure from office. If he was a Democrat, he would have been the Senate Pro Tem President.
I could go on with more examples or more differences, but I will defer to the limitations of space and time.
Drunken Sailor| 12.28.12 @ 11:40AM
No arguments here on how the parties are treated differnet by the media. I just think the Democrat roster for future races look weaker than the Republican side. Then again, the Republicans do not have their act together yet, are busy alienating a large portion of their base (conservatives) and have no strategy yet to address the low information voter problem to improve their odds of winning in the future.
rightasrain| 12.28.12 @ 12:00PM
O'Malley sounds like a thinner version of our side's overly-ambitious, overrated, overweight narcissist, Chris Christie.
Occam's Tool| 12.28.12 @ 7:17PM
Another Scumbag Libtard Light In The Brainpan Lawyer.
Nothing to see here, folks.
sdfhlk | 12.28.12 @ 8:37PM
Merry Christmas,NBA ,NFL 2012
oldeham| 12.29.12 @ 2:53AM
The current Governor of Maryland has a natural talent for messing up everything he touches. The citizens of Baltimore were happy to send him to the Annapolis because of the way he screwed up Maryland's major city, financially.
Since he has been Governor there has been a steady loss of good paying jobs. Sites for heavy industry are empty, sites for light industry are empty, store fronts in malls are empty. This the economic vision he has for Maryland. He is truly a hack of the same cloth as Barack the 1st. Tax, tax, tax, spend, spend spend. He would be a very good second act for what we now have in Washington, DC
air max en france | 12.29.12 @ 3:55AM
Through his status as the head of the Democratic Governors Association, he had secured a speaking slot in prime time. But he simply couldn’t deliver.
Pecos Pete| 12.29.12 @ 8:50AM
BBT!
Occam's Tool| 12.29.12 @ 8:59PM
Support BBT (Bring Back TLP) by telling the editor at the American Spectator WHERE TO GET OFF. Tim, I look forward to seeing you at Weasel Zippers, where I also comment.
G-d Bless, and Happy New Year, gang.
libertychick| 12.29.12 @ 6:30PM
Mr. Neumayr has covered all that is wrong with Martin O'Malley very neatly. (Can you tell I'm a life-longer Marylander?) I find it hard to believe O'Malley could win the presidential nomination in 2016 with his platform as governor of higher taxes, bad business climate, dependence on gambling revenues, enthusiasm for wind farms, gay marriage, and making MD one of the most attractive santuary states in the US. But, hey, who would have thought Obama would get re-elected with the economy in the toilet and no good ideas how to fix it? Great article, I've already sent the link to another MD resident who shares my lack of enthusiasm for the King of Hubris.