Via the Baltimore Sun:

Martin O’Malley, the former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor who ushered in an era of tech-savvy management and a new brand of progressive politics during more than two decades in public office announced his long-expected campaign for president on Saturday.

With Baltimore’s skyline as his backdrop, the 52-year-old Democrat framed the election next year in dire economic terms, arguing that income inequality is making it harder for Americans to save for retirement and send children to college, that corporate interests are winning out over small businesses.

“We are allowing our land of opportunity to become a land of inequality,” O’Malley told several hundred people gathered at Federal Hill Park to hear his announcement. “Main Street struggles, while Wall Street soars.”

The next two or three months will tell if Governor O’Malley has the ability to out-fundraise the Clinton Crime Family and its various entities and appendages, if money does flow to him, it is difficult to see how he is not the Democrat nominee. In an editorial titled O’Malley is better than Hillary Clinton. Here’s why. The Baltimore Sun shows that the Democrat establishment is more than a little unsure about a Clinton candidacy.

There’s a myth among Hillary Clinton supporters that decades of experience has made the former secretary of state the most pragmatic choice for president in 2016. And like most fairy tales, it conveniently glosses over the heroine’s flaws: her 31,000-plus missing emails (the subject of a lawsuit by the Associated Press), questions about foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation, and direct donations to Ms. Clinton from big banks, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.

But there is an alternative. Rather than rallying around someone who can’t seem to elude perpetual media scrutiny, the person all Democrats should pay close attention to is former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley who is poised to officially join the race Saturday. The former Baltimore mayor and two-term governor offers a genuine alternative to the status quo within Washington and a real threat to any GOP challenger — especially Jeb Bush.

Mr. O’Malley, unlike Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, isn’t linked to perpetual scandal and criticism, nor is he beholden to foreign donors, investment banks or a family surname. He rightfully stated that the presidency isn’t “some crown to be passed between two families” and compared to Ms. Clinton, Mr. O’Malley offers a genuinely progressive outlook on American politics. When both candidates are analyzed, it’s apparent that one caters to poll-driven centrism while the other is far more confident in a progressive vision for America

I think O’Malley presents the most substantive challenge to the GOP in 2016. While my colleague, Leon Wolf,  notes that Hillary’s dishonesty is not even an issue of debate with voters — polls show all live voters and a strong plurality of dead ones believe Hillary to be genetically incapable of telling the truth — I don’t share his belief that this is a benign attribute that voters will overlook.

Back in March, I posted on why I thought O’Malley would be a formidable candidate. I don’t think the situation in Baltimore will have any impact because he hasn’t been Baltimore mayor for eight years and the leftwing press will not treat him like George W. Bush. Nothing I have seen in Hillary’s campaign thus far has changed my mind. To the contrary, I think she is less inevitable now than she was in 2008. And Martin O’Malley is the man who can pull it off.