Former Maryland Governor Martin
O'Malley on Saturday entered the race for the Democratic presidential
nomination, joining Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in challenging
former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A crowd of about 1,000 people gathered
in Federal Hill Park in Baltimore, where he served as mayor before he
was elected governor, to hear O'Malley's announcement.
“I'm running for you,” O'Malley
told the crowd, his wife Katie Curran O'Malley and their four
children by his side.
O'Malley positioned himself as a
progressive ready to take on Wall Street.
“I've got news for the bullies of Wall
Street. The presidency is not a crown to be passed back and forth by
you between two royal families,” he said, a reference to Goldman
Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's recent comments that he would be “fine”
with either Clinton or former Florida Governor Jeb Bush as the next
president.
After his announcement, O'Malley headed
to Iowa, where he spoke at a union hall in Davenport.
“Tell me how it is that not a single
Wall Street CEO was convicted of a crime related to the 2008 economic
meltdown? Not a single one,” he said. “Tell me how it is that
you can get pulled over for a broken tail light, but if you wreck the
nation's economy you are untouchable?”
Like Clinton and Sanders, O'Malley
supports marriage equality. As governor, he signed a gay marriage
bill, which was later upheld by voters in a referendum. Last year,
he signed a law outlawing discrimination against transgender people
in the areas of employment, housing, credit and public housing.