Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley announced today that he will seek a 2016 presidential nomination, placing him in a fight with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Fifty-two-year-old O’Malley, who served as mayor of Baltimore prior to a 2007 campaign that won him Maryland’s governorship, was a Clinton supporter in 2008. In his announcement speech today, that tone changed, with O’Malley painting Clinton as a friend of Wall Street and alleging that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein told his company that he’d “be just fine with either Bush or Clinton.”
“The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by you between two royal families,” O’Malley said. “It is a sacred trust to be earned from the people of the United States, and exercised on behalf of the people of the United States.”
O’Malley hits @HillaryClinton @JebBush in announcement speech pic.twitter.com/cavPqTK8VF
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) May 30, 2015
O’Malley left the governor’s office just a few short months before the murder of Freddie Gray. The protests and unrest that followed shined an even brighter light on the issue of police brutality, and lasted for several weeks.
Not shying away from the events still so fresh in the minds of voters, O’Malley expressed firm support for the movement, calling it “everything it is supposed to mean to be an American.”
O’Malley’s other notable achievements include his push for same-sex marriage in Maryland, which he was able to sign into law in early 2012, and repealing the death penalty in Maryland for future offenders.
Photo via Martin O’Malley
