Reacting only to that interview, I thought that O'Malley seemed relatively well-spoken.  Even as the confirmed Hillary Clinton stalwart that I am, tho, I would not take someone apparently as astute as O'Malley seems for granted ... and, I'm sure that the Clinton campaign will not let down their guard either.

BTD: "More liberal? Death penalty I'll grant you. The rest is standard issue Dem now."

I think what Anne is noting here, BTD, is that Martin O'Malley actually got these things accomplished as Maryland's governor, as opposed to just talking about them as standard liberal fare. Further, he's been relatively consistent over the years in his embrace of liberalism, while other Democrats have been content to tout their liberal credentials only when the political pendulum swings back to the left, as is happening now.

Speaking as someone who's supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy, I don't disagree with Anne's assessment at all. Further, I think that Mrs. Clinton will be well-served by O'Malley's presence in the race, if her campaign plays its cards right. Like Bernie Sanders, he'll push the debate within the party leftward, which is where it really needs to be right now.

I've harbored a sneaking suspicion that O'Malley's also been positioning himself as her potential No. 2 pick, and in that regard, his campaign will also serve as his audition. That said, you never know. If Mrs. Clinton somehow stumbles badly in the coming months or later changes her mind and drops out, well, there he'll be.

I also have a sinking feeling that the east coast media will likely ignore the relatively substantive and sober Democratic primaries, in favor of continuing coverage of the GOP clown car as it careens off the guardrails.

Granted, the Republican primaries hold rich potential to be enormously entertaining. But the Beltway media's excessive focus on them contributes to their own growing misimpression that ours is still a center-right country, when that's not necessarily the case any more.

Further, the respective situations in Iraq and Afghanistan really defy easy and simple answers; even a policy of disengagement is going to have its potential pitfalls, as Barack Obama has since discovered upon taking office in January 2009.

All that said, O'Malley won't be able to get away with foreign policy generalizations for very long, if he truly wants to be taken seriously as a Democratic presidential prospect. Were he a Republican, it would likely be a different story, since all he'd have to do is basically join the chorus of d*ck-swinging harpies. But he's not.

In my mind, this is about the message, and what that message says about someone's vision, where they want the country to go, what kind of country we want to live in.  A lot of things no one thought would ever be possible have not only been done, but improved on, so it seems to me that the only thing standing in the way of accomplishing the things we want is ourselves.

There's no reason we can't expand Social Security, no reason we can't expand Medicare and/or have a single-payer health system.  There's no reason we can't fix crumbling infrastructure or guarantee a college education.  There's no reason we can't increase the standard of living, or close the income equality gap.  There's no reason we can't have gender equity in pay.

Oh, but the Republicans won't let us.  The corporations won't let us.  We can't, they won't, it's not realistic, it won't work.  Maybe if there was a tidal wave of support we could.  Maybe if we made it a case of get on this bandwagon or get off it would.

But conceding defeat without even a fight?  I don't get that.  Maybe in your world, you want a campaign of, "well, I'll see what I can do, but just remember, I will take 'no' for an answer," but I don't.  And that's why I'm happy to see Bernie Sanders out there pushing hard for average people, for the old, the poor and the sick.

In your world, raising the age of SS to 70 and turning Medicare into a welfare program are the only solutions because you are limiting the options to only what the Republicans will accept. In your world there is really no need to vote for Democratic candidates because you have already acknowledged that they are powerless to do anything other than pass Republican legislation.

Simply labeling the various states as "blue" and "red" invites people to make rather sweeping political generalizations about them which are often inapplicable for any variety of reasons. Even red states such as Arizona, Wyoming and Kansas have elected Democratic governors in the recent past. Each state's politics is unique respectively, and defies such pat and easy classifications.