Martin O’Malley is running for President and with the latest Hillary Clinton stumble, many Democrats are finally giving him a first look, since – despite months of campaigning hard – he was still polling at zero. But along with the latest twitter hashtag #askaMarylanderaboutOMalley, I thought I would give you my thoughts on why Martin O’Malley can’t become the next President of the United States. This article is specifically about Martin O’Malley’s record with African Americans.
For today’s history lesson we are going to go back to 1999. Fresh-faced, white City Councilman Martin O’Malley was running for Mayor of Baltimore on a platform of reducing murders to below 175 per year. After winning a three way primary by splitting the African American vote, he instituted a zero-tolerance policy and also the vaunted CompStat Program (an accountability tracking system which soon became CitiStat and what Martin O’Malley was known for…despite it being taken directly from New York City and Mayor Rudy Giuliani). CompStat/CityStat pushed for statistics and one of the major ones that commanders were questioned on were arrests, so naturally arrests skyrocketed.
The Baltimore City Police force arrested over 100,000 per year, mainly black males, on “quality of life” crimes. 1 out of 6 citizens in Baltimore City were arrested, again, mainly African American men for such ridiculous charges as “sitting on a stoop and littering a candy wrapper.” Now this had another benefit for Mayor O’Malley. Because the State-run Central Booking couldn’t keep up with the non-stop arrests being conducted by the City Police, then Governor Bob Ehrlich was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, and ironically the City of Baltimore joined the suit against the State. Martin O’Malley’s own father-in-law, then Attorney General Joe Curran, even said that the City needed to step up and be a part of the solution and not the problem.
And what was the result of these mass arrests? A drop in crime? Maybe. Martin O’Malley likes to say that Baltimore led the nation in violent crime reduction, but the jury is still out on that because there were heavy accusations of the books being cooked. See, when Martin O’Malley became Mayor he ordered the Police Department to audit the crime statistics and reclassify crimes that were previously lesser crimes, to be made violent crimes so that 1999 was the most dangerous year in Baltimore history. So when you compare Baltimore’s numbers before O’Malley reclassified them, it actually puts the city in 6th place for crime reduction during O’Malley’s tenure. And that 175 homicide goal? The closest O’Malley ever got to it was 253 per year.
Now we’ll jump ahead to 2013. Baltimore’s two Mayors since O’Malley, both African American Women – convict Sheila Dixon and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, both turned their backs on the O’Malley policy of mass arrests. Baltimore had a crime wave during the summer and now Governor Martin O’Malley couldn’t help himself but to write an editorial in the Baltimore Sun with an “I told you so” style of saying that if they just continued his zero-tolerance policy, things wouldn’t be so bad. Mayor Rawlings-Blake rejected the idea of returning back to mass arrests in a rare public spat. “Returning to the days of mass arrests for any and every minor offense might be a good talking point but it has been proven to be a far less effective strategy for actually reducing crime,” Mayor Rawlings-Blake told the Baltimore Sun.
She should have capped it off by pointing out that in her worst year as Mayor, and after rejecting O’Malley’s policy of arresting every black male walking down the street, Baltimore recorded 235 murders in 2013, far less than Martin O’Malley ever did. And her best year saw Baltimore drop down to 197 murders in a year, far closer to the O’Malley goal than he saw, without a policy that scarred thousands of black residents and created fear and distrust with the police department.
Now we’ll jump ahead to August 9, 2014, the day that would make Martin O’Malley’s tough crime policies, once considered an asset for a Democrat and also one that he doubled down on in retrospect, now a liability: 18-year-old black male Michael Brown was shot by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. Despite the shooting being deemed justifiable, it galvanized and became a rallying cry for every black male that had been victimized by an overzealous police department trying to replicate the demand for mass arrests required by a statistics based accountability system searching for flawed metrics.
And before you go thinking that Martin O’Malley doesn’t need the black vote to win, he won Baltimore City’s Mayor without the overwhelming support of black voters and he’s obviously working hard to target Hispanics (or as he calls them “New Americans”), remember that Hillary Clinton won the Hispanic vote in 2008 by 2 to 1 and she’s not planning her own presidential library just yet.
Take everything the WATCHER reported and team it with the fact that his time as Governor was the largest creation of taxes in Maryland’s history and you’ve got a very ineffective candidate to run for President. He probably will get eaten up in the Primary, but if he did become the Democratic Candidate the Republican money machine would basically tear him to pieces. If O’Malley had any sense at all, he would go after Mikulski’s vacant seat in the US Senate and bide his time for a run at President in 10 years. More than likely, his track record of being the “Mad Taxer” would still bring him down, but he would have 10 years to make wiser decisions in the Senate. I really think he is blowing an opportunity for that Senate Seat, but hey, What do I know?
O’Malley would get his ass whipped worse then Brown did in Maryland. Only the moonbats would vote for this jackass.
Brown lost by about 5%, not exactly a landslide.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/md-governor-2014/results/
Brown is a black Democrat in Maryland who was already almost Governor (Lt Gov.). For him to lose at all, by any margin, was a major ass whipping for both him and his party.
In a State that is registered 2-1 Democrat, Brown got his ass whipped.
I agree that O’Malley would not win a Presidential Election. However, I have to ask, what is a “moonbat”? Is it a naive person or a pejorative for a person of far-left political opinions?
The answer is:
BOTH
Realistically O’Malley is one of a handful of candidates, that know they have little to no chance of competing beyond their region. But are looking for opportunities in the next cabinet or maybe even a VP nod.
Correct
It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the writer of this story is on the “Hil-team”. In truth, there’s no daylight between either Hilary and O’Malley as far as their willingness to continue to pander to the black community. So to be for one as opposed to the other on the basis of who is better for blacks is disingenuous.
If the black community would wake up they would realize that the reason they, as a community, are in the jackbox that they are, is because they are being used by the Democrats. And whether it’s Hilary or O’Malley, they’re in for the same ride.
That’s not to say that the Republicans care any more about them; but if the blacks were smart, they’d at least vote Republican so that the Democrats would realize that they really need to actually help the black community to get their future votes. Throwing more and more welfare at them is not helping. It actually is what has destroyed the black community.
Truth is, if the blacks were treated the same as the whites, the blacks that were willing to put forth an effort could compete for work and opportunities just as easily as the whites. Unfortunately, the Democrats have convinced many generations of blacks that they are less capable and need special help. So look back over the last 60 years and see how well that worked for blacks. But it did help the Democrats. They now have a large voting block in their back pocket, and the only thing they have to give them is more welfare and “special privileges”.
I read much the same thing two weeks ago in an article by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. So while unoriginal, I applaud your recognition of the plight of black voters in America and one way of them as a block regaining some political power.
While a very lengthy, detailed editorial – the writer failed to produce a single shred of actual, verifiable evidence that would benefit to back up his claim of wrong doing against the mostly “black male” population of Baltimore City.
Of course the majority of arrests will be “black male” – the majority of the population in Baltimore City is “black male”.
How about you think of this – which you failed to mention in your racially biased article: What if the numbers for Felon Dixon and Lipstick Rawlings-Blake regarding murders were “cooked” the same way you report that the numbers for what classified a violent crime were “cooked”. What if the Mayor, in between bouts of putting on a tremendous amount of make-up, went to the Coroner’s Office and they reclassified what actually constitutes a “homicide” – or better yet – don’t classify certain deaths as murders (those under “suspicious circumstances”, or otherwise unclassified).
See, the game can go both ways! Numbers can be manipulated to look great for any candidate / group / person – you just need an educated audience to weed through the BS.
I really wish people like you would stop blaming the police for your life’s woes. Black people, like white people, should be held responsible for their own actions. Why is it the Police Departments fault for arresting you because of your crime? Is it the fault of law enforcement that you are not working, and choose to spend your day on a lawn chair smoking weed and taking government handouts from those of us that do have jobs?
…and for the record, SRB is an idiot. She is more worried with her physical appearance in public and on TV than she is about actually helping citizens of the City. She openly blasts her selected Police Commissioner whenever she gets the chance so she can “connect” with the thug population. Most mayors would be proud of having national articles written about their policies, or the broad, sweeping changes they have effected in their cities…Sadly, we get the Mayor who is more well known for her necklace collection than her brand of politics.
We get 2 idiots in a row. First, we get the $800 shoe wearing thief, stealing from the needy. A felon who now gets an $80,000 a year “retirement” check from the City.
Currently, we have a mayor who shows up to a tragedy in high heels, a leather skirt, and a kangol hat with her hair combed over half of her face. Not to mention the idiotic amount of makeup and her attempts to sound edu-ma-cated.
Horrible.
I swore I would never vote for O’Malley, but after reading this article, I may reconsider.
Kurt,
I love how you request proof that the the majority of the arrests are black males yet in the next sentence concede of course they are because the population of the city is mainly black males.
But if you hadn’t jumped on the O’Malleh bandwagon during his second term of Governor you would know the proof was the $860,000 settlement against the city for arresting people for crimes as pathetic as littering (which I cited in my piece).
While it is a whole lot harder to hide a murder than it is to hide a mid lassitude violent crime but I agree, the books are being cooked like crazy in the city since O’Malley started the tradition.
But yes, most Mayors would be proud of their tough crime stance, except now in the post Ferguson world, black voters are going to eye a tough on crime Democrat a whole lot more suspiciously.
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