Friday, January 29, 2016

There is talk out of Iowa that

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, currently polling at around four percent, could play the King-er-Queen Maker in the looming Sanders versus Clinton Fight. The point being that in a caucus environment, four percent can't leverage much in the way of a delegate slate, but if O'Malley came to his caucuses with  some disciplined cadres and some notion of who he wanted to enrich then just possibly thast four percent could be the margin of victory for either the Former Secretary of State or the Senator from Vermont.
I've seen it happen at local caucuses and it has happened before in Iowa.
But to Your Humble Narrator it seems "a finkish thing to do" (to quote the Late Jack Kerouac), having put someone over the top in Iowa its hard to imagine how a candidate would then go on to New Hampshire to make a case for clean and transparent politics. Plus that sort of thing, reeks just reeks of a deal. When all you've got is four percent to work with it is hard to make the argument that you are strategically voting for a candidate you think you can whip in primaries to come with greater ease.
So I would hope O'Malley could find some grander more dignified way to exit the stage, alas this is modern politics and those opportunities just don't happen for the "Four Percent Guy".
It is a shame because O'Malley is a decent man, he is a Successful Governor from a Big Mid Atlantic State, the veritable farm team for US Presidents....but something hasn't clicked this year and the man is currently billed with the cheap acts.  He can hardly scheme for the Vice Presidency either, as an Eastern Seaboard Governor he makes a poor running mate geographically and demographically for either a Tranplanted Chicago Gal by way of New York Or a Transplanted New Yorker by way of Montepelier.
So exactly whats to be got by delegate-peddling isn't clear....The Secretaryship of Housing and Urban Development?

Lets hope O'Malley does not go the cheap route out there in Iowa.

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