Is ex-Maryland Governor Martin O' Malley run for POTUS considered a JOKE?! (Ellicott City: 2013, apartments)

[CBMD]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

Is the Secretary of Animosity towards Rural Living job still open?

Was unaware that he had an anti rural reputation. Care to explain?

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by CBMD

Was unaware that he had an anti rural reputation. Care to explain?

Hahahaha, seriously? I don't mean to make light of it, but.......


- Raiding the transportation fund and not giving jurisdictions back their gas tax money hurts rural places that are most reliant on roads the most.

- O'Malley for years tried to kill the coal tax credit that keeps the industry afloat. Why is the tax credit needed? Because of upfront bonding and strict reclamation rules passed by the state. I am not complaining about the regulations, but the cost of having them is the tax credit unless you want to kill a few hundred bread winning jobs in an economically struggling county.

- O'Malley was at Rocky Gap for a conference when two miners died in an accident. He went home and didn't even visit the seen of the accident even though it was about 35 minutes away. Compare this to what the governors of PA and WV do when mine accidents happen in their states.

- PlanMaryland, which removes the 200+ year precedent of allowing local jurisdictions to decide their own zoning regulations and imposes a one size fits all system for restricting growth, even though Allegany County has the opposite problem, we have been losing population for 60 years.

- Refusing to even give an up or down vote on natural gas extraction for years. He was more than content to let the question stay unanswered until his way out the door. By then his mirror image Cuomo had banned fracking in NY, so MOM followed suit. Which way is the wind blowing? Cool, MOM will go that way.

If you want more examples, feel free to look back through my posts. I have several other laundry lists, although the above are the hightlights. On a personal level, the guy is loathed here by everyone I talk to in my political work, Dem or GOP. The guy didn't even try to establish relationships out here, or listen to our concerns. We were dead to him pretty much from Day 1.

MOM's idea of "One Maryland" was that the entire state needed to get in line with his suburban-based agenda. If it is a poor fit for our region? Too bad, not sad, "One Maryland" means you guys are the forest preserve for the parts of the state where growth is to be directed and encouraged. Previous governors, including so pretty left wing guys, still understood the regional, economic, and geographic diversity in our state and paid it at least lip service.

In case you couldn't tell, my feelings are the man was not only a poor governor for us, his attitude was a daily f-you on our entire way of life out here.

[North Beach Person]

I have said this before. I've had dealings on municipal issues with every Governor going back to Harry Hughes in the 1980s. Each one of them had their quirks but you always felt they were dealing straight with you. Every one, that is, except O'Malley.

I swear that every day he was in office he started out asking himself, "How can I **** over the rural Counties and municipalities today?"

And then he did it.

[LoveToRow]

Originally Posted by CoolZombie

I think Marty missed the boat. The Obama coalition is itching for a more liberal candidate to take on Hillary and he let Bernie get their love. O'Malley did practically nothing for college affordability and hasn't put forth really any grand stands abainst our government's current policy. He's better than the repulsive morbidly obese Garbage Pail Kids caricature currently governing our state but that doesn't mean much to anyone outside MD.

Stay classy Democrats.

[CBMD]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

Hahahaha, seriously? I don't mean to make light of it, but.......


- Raiding the transportation fund and not giving jurisdictions back their gas tax money hurts rural places that are most reliant on roads the most.

- O'Malley for years tried to kill the coal tax credit that keeps the industry afloat. Why is the tax credit needed? Because of upfront bonding and strict reclamation rules passed by the state. I am not complaining about the regulations, but the cost of having them is the tax credit unless you want to kill a few hundred bread winning jobs in an economically struggling county.

- O'Malley was at Rocky Gap for a conference when two miners died in an accident. He went home and didn't even visit the seen of the accident even though it was about 35 minutes away. Compare this to what the governors of PA and WV do when mine accidents happen in their states.

- PlanMaryland, which removes the 200+ year precedent of allowing local jurisdictions to decide their own zoning regulations and imposes a one size fits all system for restricting growth, even though Allegany County has the opposite problem, we have been losing population for 60 years.

- Refusing to even give an up or down vote on natural gas extraction for years. He was more than content to let the question stay unanswered until his way out the door. By then his mirror image Cuomo had banned fracking in NY, so MOM followed suit. Which way is the wind blowing? Cool, MOM will go that way.

If you want more examples, feel free to look back through my posts. I have several other laundry lists, although the above are the hightlights. On a personal level, the guy is loathed here by everyone I talk to in my political work, Dem or GOP. The guy didn't even try to establish relationships out here, or listen to our concerns. We were dead to him pretty much from Day 1.

MOM's idea of "One Maryland" was that the entire state needed to get in line with his suburban-based agenda. If it is a poor fit for our region? Too bad, not sad, "One Maryland" means you guys are the forest preserve for the parts of the state where growth is to be directed and encouraged. Previous governors, including so pretty left wing guys, still understood the regional, economic, and geographic diversity in our state and paid it at least lip service.

In case you couldn't tell, my feelings are the man was not only a poor governor for us, his attitude was a daily f-you on our entire way of life out here.

That's an impressive list. I can see that they all qualify as political disputes, I'm less sold on the claim that they are anti-rural. Just because they may have a negative impact in rural areas, does not make them anti-rural per se. It's possible some of them could have negative effects in urban areas too, (more people use roads in urban areas), but wouldn't automatically get labeled anti-urban.

[bufflove]

Originally Posted by dkf747

How is it possible that anyone thinks he is not liberal enough??

Seriously? O'Malley had the right priorities and got things done, but he was far from a progressive or visionary. Most of his accomplishments - while important - were low hanging fruit that most moderates support (gay marriage, minimum wage hike, Dream Act, wind energy, etc.). He's probably a little to the left of Hillary, but that's about it.

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by CBMD

That's an impressive list. I can see that they all qualify as political disputes, I'm less sold on the claim that they are anti-rural. Just because they may have a negative impact in rural areas, does not make them anti-rural per se. It's possible some of them could have negative effects in urban areas too, (more people use roads in urban areas), but wouldn't automatically get labeled anti-urban.

Quibble over semantics all you want, the guy's policies hurt rural MD disproportionately compared to the rest of the state, and it wasn't an accident or collateral damage.

Looking past the laundry list of facts, you learn a lot about a person's priorities when a crisis happens. We had two miners trapped under tons of debris. The governor of our state was just over 30 minutes away. He got in his limo and headed back to Annapolis. If that isn't an f-you to our community, I don't know what is. The slight was remembered and still talked about.

He stiffed us on numerous planned engagements too, often sending low level under secretaries in his stead. NPB's sentiments are echoed by everyone I have talked to that interacted with him. The guy is a snake and seemed to relish in the fact he didn't have to hide it because us podunk hill dwellers couldn't hurt him politically.

[MidValleyDad]

Originally Posted by CBMD

That's an impressive list. I can see that they all qualify as political disputes, I'm less sold on the claim that they are anti-rural. Just because they may have a negative impact in rural areas, does not make them anti-rural per se. It's possible some of them could have negative effects in urban areas too, (more people use roads in urban areas), but wouldn't automatically get labeled anti-urban.

Let me add the Flush Tax. Collected all over the state 'To save the Bay' but there is no way any of the smaller systems can even request money from it to fund needed upgrades. Not that we can't get it, we can't even request any of it back. And we have to collect it and defend it (and its increases) to our systems customers.

[CoolZombie]

Originally Posted by LoveToRow

Stay classy Democrats.

Masterful response! You've been really paying attention to those Trump non-answer answers, good for you! That Pulitzer Prize isn't far behind

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by MidValleyDad

Let me add the Flush Tax. Collected all over the state 'To save the Bay' but there is no way any of the smaller systems can even request money from it to fund needed upgrades. Not that we can't get it, we can't even request any of it back. And we have to collect it and defend it (and its increases) to our systems customers.

That's changed. When it was first adopted during Ehrlich's term it was reserved for the 69 (I think) largest sewer treatment systems. There were so many complaints (which you echoed) that the funding was opened up to all and included grants for individual septic users to upgrade failing systems.

Another of the reasons was that estimates for upgrade costs were off by 300% and smaller systems, which also had to upgrade to meet the federal ENR mandates, couldn't afford to do so.

And, of course, even though the Flush Tax fund was supposed to be untouchable, the O'Malley Administration raided it to balance the General Fund and stripped it empty over a couple of budget cycles. That was a collateral reason that it had to be doubled, to replenish what was diverted to other uses.