Saturday afternoon, former presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley spoke at the Union about the democratic presidential campaign and fielded questions from students.
The dialogue, hosted by MSU College Democrats, was one one of several campus visits O’Malley has made in support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
O’Malley most recently visited East Carolina University and Bowling Green University before he came to MSU.
Social relations and policy senior and MSU College Democrats president Daniel Eggerding introduced O’Malley.
“Not our parents, not our grandparents, not our great grandparents — it’s our generation that has the ability and the power to make a difference if we want to,” Eggerding said.
Millennials are nearly neck and neck with baby boomers for making up the largest generational chunk of the voting public, according to a recent Pew Research Center study.
O’Malley began his speech with a "go green, go white" call-and-response chant and spoke about his sister, who once attended MSU.
O’Malley praised the country’s 78-straight months of job growth under President Barack Obama, which he said is the longest streak since growth was first measured.
“But no winning football team ever won the game by leaving at halftime,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley condemned Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, characterizing him as an “immigrant-bashing carnival barker."
Despite his stated disdain for Trump, O’Malley encouraged students to reach across the aisle.
“Republicans are not all our enemies," O'Malley said. "They’re our friends and our colleagues, they’re our uncles."
O’Malley, a former Democratic presidential candidate, drew on his experience with Clinton to encourage students to vote for her.
“I’m one of the few people who can stand before you Spartans and say I have campaigned for Hillary Clinton, and I have campaigned against Hillary Clinton,” O'Malley said. “She is one tough person to do this one tough job.”
The forum then opened with O’Malley fielding students' questions on issues like climate change, education inequality, undocumented students and DREAMers, as well as Clinton’s position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
When asked how the campaign plans to appeal to disgruntled former supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) presidential bid, O’Malley pointed to the impact Sanders’ ideals have had on the party’s platform.
“At the end of the day, we have now the most progressive democratic platform that we have ever had,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley posed for pictures with students following the dialogue.
“On TV a lot of times politicians, they seem kind of contrived and they’ve got this speech that’s laid out,” James Madison College freshman Patrick Dunstone said. “But having this conversation with him was really cool because he was loose and a lot more real than you would expect.”
O’Malley said he enjoyed being at MSU, and that being on college campuses makes him feel optimistic about where the country is headed.
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But the goal of the event was to increase voter turnout among students.
“My cautionary note here is that people need to turn out to vote, people need to become engaged, this is not a dress rehearsal, this is not a spectator sport, this democracy of ours reflects us," O'Malley said. "I think campuses can turn the tide here, and show the rest of the world that America’s best days are still in front of us by electing Hillary Clinton.”
