Washington Post - Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley did something during an appearance [in Iowa] that Democrats likely will never see from Hillary Rodham Clinton: He broke into song.
Following a speech at a trendy restaurant in which he touted his accomplishments and called on Democrats to renew their commitment to the middle class, O’Malley borrowed an acoustic guitar from the Flatwater Drifters, an all-female, old-time string band that was providing entertainment at the event.
Stepping back up onto the metal chair from which he had addressed the crowd, the 2016 presidential aspirant proceeded to play his version of “Scare Away the Dark,” a song by an English folk-rock singer who goes by the name of Passenger that extols the value of genuine human connections in the modern world.
“We want something more, not just nasty and bitter,” O’Malley sang. “We want something real, not just hashtags and Twitter.”
As he aggressively positions himself for a possible White House bid, the performance underscored how much O’Malley’s thinking has evolved about his side career as a musician. When he first ran for governor in 2006, he announced he was retiring from his Celtic rock band, explaining that his advisers thought it detracted from his gravitas.
In the years since, the band, O’Malley’s March, has surfaced several times a year, including at a fundraiser for O'Malley's political action committee in Washington last week. And O’Malley, now 52, rarely hesitates to pick up a guitar when asked to perform in impromptu settings. The thinking now is that there’s no reason to hide an important part of who he is.
Many of the 75 or so people who attended Saturday night’s event, a fundraiser for the Pottawattamie County Democrats, seemed to agree.
“I think it shows his human side, just like how he had a beer afterward,” said Linda Nelson, chairwoman of the county Democrats. “It shows us he’s not much different than us.”
1 comment:
I hope people are not fooled by O'Malley's carefully crafted image or a regular guy. He is a corporate Democrat who left the state after approving fracking -- under cover of a commission he created to legitimize is -- and approving the fracked gas export terminal at Cove Point that will encourage more fracking in the 7 state Marcellus Shale. As mayor of Balimore arrested tens of thousands of young black men for doing nothing wrong, they were never charged but told to sign a waiver that they would not sue if they wanted their arrest record erased. I would not trust him with the US military with that kind of behavior!
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