O’Malley: DNC Chair Is Circling the Wagons Around the ‘Inevitable Frontrunner’

‘Debbie Wasserman Schultz is doing a terrible disservice to the public’

WALLACE: “Let’s bring in Democratic presidential candidate, former Governor Martin O’Malley from Maryland, live this morning in Des Moines, Iowa. I believe you are the only candidate in either party to have made to it all of your scheduled campaign events yesterday. Is that true? And how is the state feeling for you?”
O’MALLEY: “Yeah. We decided to plow through, quite literally sometimes. (Laughter) The very — very last event of the night, we actually had a whopping total of one person show up, but by God, he was glad to see me.” (Laughter) So we spent the time with him.” [crosstalk]
WALLACE: “They have caucus for you. They care about that.”
O’MALLEY: “I hope so. I’m working on him. (Laughter) [indecipherable]”
WALLACE: “Can I ask you — “
O’MALLEY: “You know, it’s Iowa —“
WALLACE: “Go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt.”
O’MALLEY: “No, I say it’s Iowa. People wait here until the last couple of weeks. They want to see the whole campaign play out. So I wasn’t surprised that he was uncommitted. But I was glad he took the time to come out in the snow to see me. We almost canceled that last debate, but we’re out there anyway, so we [indecipherable]” [crosstalk]
WALLACE: “I think it’s a good sign for you that he came out. I want to ask you about something because I agree with your assessment about the strategy of the Democratic debates. I was flipping around channels the Saturday before Christmas, had no idea there was a Democratic debate on. I happened into it about 20 minutes in. You say that the strategy for the Democratic debates is designed to limit viewers. Why?”
O’MALLEY: “Because they are trying to circle the wagons around this year’s inevitable front-runner, Hillary Clinton. And I think that the party leadership, or I should say the party leader Debbie Wasserman Schultz is doing a terrible disservice to the public. I mean, look how many debates the Republicans have had. And they scheduled them on week nights. We are the Democratic Party, not the un-Democratic Party, we should be having at least as many debates as they’ve had. But, in the debates that we’ve been allowed to have, although they are hidden on Saturday, its nonetheless people here in Iowa and people in New Hampshire have been going out of their way to do their due diligence and we have one more debate coming up in South Carolina. So, I continue to put forward our message that what our country needs right now to move us forward and other these rather self-defeating and divided times is new leadership. Not more years of divided and polarized governance but actually new leadership that can pull us together. As a former governor, as a mayor I’ve done that, and that’s what I have to offer to our party and our country.”

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