O'Malley: Broken economy fuels urban unrest, Trump surge.
Grundy Center, Ia. – Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley on Friday blamed a broken economy for two ongoing but seemingly opposite phenomenon: the unrest seen in America’s largest cities and the ascendant presidential campaign of businessman Donald Trump.
The comparison came during a campaign stop at the Kling Memorial Library in Grundy Center, a northeast Iowa city of approximately 2,700. Jacquie Reese, a New Hampshire resident visiting Iowa, asked the Democratic presidential hopeful how he improved relations between police officers and minority communities during his seven-year stint as Baltimore’s mayor.
“It just seems like the climate between blacks and whites just gets worse, and maybe it’s because the news shows the worst parts,” said Reese, a 70-year-old retired teacher and Iowa native.
Stagnant wages and a lack of jobs are leaving both poor black and white families feeling “ignored” by politicians, O’Malley said. That’s the underlying fuel that caused the type of civil unrest seen in Baltimore and elsewhere in the wake of young black men killed during interactions with police, he said.
But it also fuels some voters to embrace the Republican candidacy of Trump, “after he says really hateful and racist things about whole groups of new American immigrants,” O’Malley said. The New York real estate mogul’s candidacy is about scapegoating immigrants when the economy is the real problem, he said.
“There are a lot of people, not just blacks, there’s a lot of white families who feel they’re ignored, that they’re not seen,” he said. “Those senses of alienation among white people and among black people are different in their perspective and they’re different in their experience, but they share one really important thing. It’s an economy that no longer works for all of us. There is an economic injustice that is fueling the rising anger among people that are doing worse, rather than better, for their kids right now.”
O’Malley also called the Iraq War “the worst blunder in modern American history,” and promised not to send American troops into combat without a “compelling national security reason.”
It was the second of three stops Friday as O’Malley finished a three-day tour of the state. With an average of 3.3 percent support in Iowa, according to Real Clear Politics, O’Malley widely trails frontrunner Hillary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s fiery rhetoric has made him a favorite alternative to Clinton.
Still, voters at stops in Grundy Center and Fort Dodge see a path forward for O’Malley. Sanders’ strength is his fiery speaking style, said Phyllis Holland, vice chair of the Grundy County Democrats. But his proposals, such as free tuition at public universities, lack specifics on how he’d get them done, she said. She liked O’Malley’s more calculated approach.
“Martin O’Malley has a record of being able to take the issues as they are and improve on them,” said Holland, who’s deciding between supporting Clinton or O’Malley. “His experience in Baltimore and Maryland show that he’s done some really good things with social issues.” . .
REACTION: The crowd cheered in Fort Dodge when O’Malley opened his remarks by greeting and pointing out two “trackers” filming the event, including one he said was for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “You know one day, when we raise more money, we’re going to be able to afford trackers too,” he said.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/08/07/martin-omalley-ecoonomy-unrest-trump/31312759/
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