I'm Caucusing for Martin O'Malley, But Then What?

Captions: 1. Martin O’Malley at Labor Day Picnic, September 2015. 2. On left, Phil Hemingway, Iowa City Community School Board Director; on right, Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential candidate.

I’ve decided to caucus for Martin O’Malley, but if he doesn’t achieve quorum (enough caucus supporters) at Mercer Park in Iowa City, where I usually caucus, I’ll have to jump to Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton. That’s a dilemma for me because of Bernie’s stance on guns (he voted against the Brady Bill twice according to the newspapers and five times according to Hillary) and Hillary’s coziness with and funding from Wall Street banks.

God knows I won’t have much time to make up my mind, because Bernie and Hillary supporters will be all over the people who can’t muster a quorum, trying to convince us to join their candidate’s caucus. I’ve been there before and it’s a whirlwind process that happens very fast.

A former neighbor in 2008 was so mad that his candidate, Joe Biden, didn’t achieve a quorum that he took his ball and went home. He wouldn’t caucus for anyone else. I thought that was childish and selfish. I don’t plan on doing that.

All three Democratic candidates have something to offer, so I’m thinking that I can’t go too far wrong. I’ll caucus for Bernie Sanders if O’Malley doesn’t achieve a quorum. I’m mad at Bernie for his pro-gun votes but I love his stance on Wall Street, wealth inequality, and his fight for the disappearing middle class.

All three candidates want to raise the minimum wage. Hillary’s fighting for a $12 minimum wage because she says she thinks that’s all that can realistically be passed in Congress. Bernie and Martin O’Malley favor $15 an hour, which I like better, but it depends on how many Republicans are in Congress in 2016 as to what can get passed. Most Republicans, with the possible exception of Mike Huckabee, think that people making minimum wage or a bit more than that are making too much money already, including Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

I worry when I read the newspapers and see a registered Democrat here and there talking about caucusing for Donald Trump in Iowa. There was a particularly depressing article in USA Today about “Walmart Voters” jumping on board the Trump campaign, even a Democrat, despite Trump’s statement that they make too much money. Pull-EEZE!

Walmart voters loved his anti-immigrant statements as if piling on immigrants would solve their problems. Actually, greedy corporations like Walmart are their problem and so are Republicans in Congress and in the Iowa legislature and the Iowa Governor’s mansion. Those are the people who are fighting to keep their wages down.

I’m hoping we don’t have another “Reagan Democrat” situation where people vote against their own economic interests to vote for a narcissistic megalomaniac whose domestic and foreign policies are as thin as his skin when he’s asked a question by a moderator during a debate. All his policy plans are “great…phenomenal…amazing,” but he never gets into specifics. I don’t think he can.