I do not want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee.

[mahina]

347. Martin O'Malley

DAVENPORT, Iowa — Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley stepped up hiscritique of Wall Street excesseshere Friday as he began his first swing through Iowa this year with a populist speech to an enthusiastic crowd of close to 300 people attending a Democratic dinner.

O’Malley, who is aggressively positioning himself as an alternative to presumed Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, said that his party “must not allow another Wall Street meltdown to bring down hard-working families.” In a speech broadcast live on C-SPAN, he called for tougher sanctions on banks that break the law and for reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era measure that separated commercial and investment banking.

Many left-leaning Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), argue that the act’s repeal in 1999 under President Bill Clinton contributed to the 2008 global credit crisis. If O'Malley is to gain traction against Hillary Clinton, one key will be successfully courting Democrats who have been pining for Warren to run for president — something she has insisted she has no plans to do in 2016.

During O'Malley's appearance at the Scott County Democrats' “Red, White and Blue Dinner,” he offered a prescription for “making the dream true again” that includes raising the minimum wage, expanding Social Security benefits, making pre-kindergarten universally available and ensuring equal pay for women. “Sing it with me people,” O’Malley said. “When women succeed, America succeeds.”

The speech, which drew multiple standing ovations, both underscored O’Malley’s opportunities and the challenges in the nation’s first presidential nominating state, where early polls show Clinton with a commanding lead and O’Malley barely registering. In interviews afterward, many Democratic activists said they were only starting to learn about O’Malley.

“I haven’t really followed him all that closely, but I’m going to be looking at him a lot harder now,” said Ken Krayenhagen, a 56-year-old chiropractor who lives in Davenport. “I like a leader that’s inspiring.”

ttp://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/03/21/omalley-steps-up-wall-street-critique-in-swing-through-iowa/