Martin O'Malley Quotes

I won in a primary, so I understand primary fights.

I normally don't endorse in Democratic primaries.

You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system. One example is John Kennedy.

Donald Trump defeated not one but two political parties on his way to winning the Presidency.

In 1984, I managed Walter Mondale's campaign for president. Mondale won the nomination after a bruising battle with Colorado Senator Gary Hart and Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Any time you have a competitive situation like politics is, there are winners, and there are people who don't win, and their supporters can sometimes be very emotional.

Let me just be very clear that the Republican Party will select a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton.

But to make a long story short, I decided that I was going to run, and I announced that I was going to run for president in Florida, I would be the favorite son from Florida, and that would stop Johnson and Kennedy from dividing up the state.

The way to help this country is to limit Republican power.

It is true that in some states the only important vote is the primary, when you choose between different members of the same party. In these states, where our two-party system usually does not function, it is important that everyone vote in the primaries. Elsewhere throughout the country, citizens should vote both in the primaries and in the final election, for where the two-party system works they will always have a choice between party candidates.

During the protracted tooth-and-nail tussle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, I was one of those fierce partisans desperate for the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House to win the nomination.

The 2008 battle in Iowa for the Democratic caucus was perhaps the most titanic single nominating contest in the history of modern politics.

I'm from Florida and we have huge primary contests there.

The good thing about having a Republican primary is that the voters will decide our nominee - unlike the Democrats.

I'm tired now of the elections.

Every four years in the presidential election, some new precedent is broken.

In some future America, there could be a plausible Michael Bloomberg path to the Democratic nomination. I would love to read a column by a smart person actually attempting to persuade me of this, using evidence.

In Europe and the United States, you've got different systems to select candidates, and no system is perfect.

I try not to tune in to politics until it's two or three months before the election. Till then, it's like watching preseason football.

My first presidential primary vote was for Bobby Kennedy.

I could have beat Obama.

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'

In an election, one needs both hope and audacity.

I have never understood the Iowa caucus.

So if 1960 had occurred under the old convention system, Kennedy would have had a very hard time getting the Democratic nomination because he would have been rejected by all those people who had worked with him in Washington.