Gov. Martin O'Malley rallied volunteers in Iowa and roused Democratic Party faithful in Minnesota Saturday during a swing through the heartland. O'Malley has embarked on a frenetic campaign to help Democrats across the country in the midterm elections and to help lay the groundwork for his own potential presidential bid.
"I'm going to be very blunt here," said Brad Anderson, a Democrat running to be Iowa's next secretary of state. "There are few people that has been more helpful to Iowa Democrats in 2014 than Governor Martin O'Malley."
Anderson called Maryland's term-limited governor "an enormous help to me personally, and he has been an enormous help to Democrats from the Missouri to the Mississippi River, firing up Democrats," according to a transcript of remarks provided by O'Malley's staff.
O'Malley took the praise graciously, and went on to tell volunteers about to canvass Iowa neighborhoods in Beaverdale that they were about to find a lot of people feeling down about the state of democracy. But, O'Malley said, "You have the opportunity to sing a song of hope and a song of better days when you go door to door."