Other than Hillary and Bernie, who are some viable Democratic Party candidates? originally appeared on Quora: The best answer to any question.
Answer by Jaylin Pringle, High School Student, on Quora.
Martin O'Malley really, REALLY isn't getting his point across. He was a two-term very progressive Governor in Maryland. He was a two-term mayor in Baltimore. He served on that city's council for eight years.
Governor O'Malley in my opinion, should be a bigger challenge to Mrs.Clinton than Senator Sanders. It doesn't mean he is though.
He had one serious gaffe during the campaign, "all lives matter." He said it in a sincere and conciliatory way and I wasn't upset about it, his intentions were clear and harmless. However, since that encounter with #BlackLivesMatter at Netroots, Governor O 'Malley and I (yes, ME) have grown on this issue. We both have learned the importance of the the phrase "Black Lives Matter." He seems like a leader who's willing to quickly and confidently fess up to a mistake
While mayor of Baltimore, he was very tough on crime. It's funny to me that now everyone is back-tracking on 90's crime policies. I truly think that mass incarceration and over-policing are serious problems, it's just that there was a time when people yearned for a tough stance on crime. O'Malley adopted a statistics-based tracking system called CitiStat, modeled after Compstat. If you've watch Law and Order, they reference CompStat. According to O' Malley, violent crime dropped 37% in Baltimore under his administration. His stance on crime and his history of effectiveness should be highlighted everywhere, but this isn't the 90's and violent crime is down by a great measure. Violent crime hasn't been this low since 1978, the FBI says. Policies like the one O' Malley had in place were needed. Now, especially without context, they look like overkill.
Governor O' Malley supported changing the marriage laws in Maryland before being gay was officially (using hyperbole here) "cool." O'Malley said "I have concluded that discriminating against individuals based on their sexual orientation in the context of civil marital rights is unjust. I have also concluded that treating the children of families headed by same-sex couples with lesser protections under the law than the children of families headed by heterosexual parents, is also unjust," this quotation is from 2011. He has the upper hand on Clinton here. See, Secretary Clinton changed her opinion, she did not have a state to run to show how supportive she was of same-sex marriage, all she could do was make a statement. He lead the issue of same-sex marriage legalization in Maryland almost four years ago. In that time, we've seen an even bigger shift in attitude in favor, he did the right thing.
Lastly, the Governor's position on immigration is incredibly liberal and made me ponder my own position. As stated in the recent debate, he wants to expand Obamacare to cover undocumented, not illegal, immigrants. This goes beyond Mrs.Clinton's "buy-in" and seems like a just thing. Many undocumented persons are citizens, their parents are unable to get them documentation without being outed as illegal. With his plan to expand Obamacare this way, he does support a path to citizenship. However, that's a quality not unique in this Democratic primary.
He has many accomplishments from his time in office, mostly because his state is pretty blue, but that doesn't discount the fact that he enacted real change. His years of executive experience and time spent in the "rising star" category should make him a bigger threat. He's still liked in the state, as a governor, he's polling at 2% in this primary. His policies were beneficial. In the end, I'd still vote for Clinton, that's his biggest problem.
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