Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) talked about his preparation for a potential bid for the White House in 2016 during an interview with the Washington Post published Saturday.
“I have a great deal of respect for Hillary Clinton,” he said. “But for my own part, I have a responsibility to prepare and to address the things that I feel a responsibility to address. . . . To squander this important period of preparation because of horse-race concerns and handicapping concerns is just not a very productive use of energy. . . . Right now, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing — the thought work and the preparation work.”
O’Malley told the Post that he has been meeting with policy experts to ready himself for a campaign and flesh out his platform.
While the governor said that he isn’t factoring whether Hillary Clinton will in 2016 into his decision, aides to O’Malley told the Post that he likely won’t run if Clinton enters the race.
O’Malley didn’t say when he would make his final decision about running for president, but he indicated that it would be sooner rather than later.
“[There is] not an infinite window unless you start with 100 percent name recognition, in which case you can wait until the very end,” he said. “People who don’t have that need a greater amount of lead time for preparation.”
In a May 2013 New Hampshire poll on potential 2016 Democratic candidates, Clinton led the race and O’Malley ranked last.
