Gov. Martin O’Malley ventures from his Annapolis office into hostile Reddit-land via laptop in a futile attempt to earn hip Internet cred for his nascent presidential cam- paign, as his ill-advised ‘AMA’ on Reddit bites the dust. (Photo/O’Malley Twitter feed)

HIS ONLINE OFFER ‘ASK ME ANYTHING’
IN THE END PRODUCES NOTHING,
SO REPORT THE REDDITORS

The most horrendous ‘AMA’ ever!

THE GOVERNOR DODGES QUESTIONS
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
“The man will not answer the questions that the majority of people want [him to address]. This is what we’ve come to expect from our ‘leaders.’”

So complained “Redditor ‘The Tenth State’” at the end of the initial segment of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s eight-and-a-half-hour venture Monday into the uncharted waters of popular social-networking service Reddit, where registered community members submit content and evaluate that which is submitted by fellow users.

By all accounts it was a disaster for the Maryland governor cum presidential aspirant.

“After this ‘AMA’ I have no respect for Gov. O’Malley as a politician or honest deliberator,” said a Redditor calling himself “horatiooo.”

(An ‘AMA’ is an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session.)

“[H]e’s a s**tty governor and what limited success he has had in running his state is mostly due to small business owners who were lucky enough to open their doors to a growing state economy which he had nothing to do with,” added Redditor “allthe_gundams.”

“Basically he got lucky since a bunch of nouveau riche people moved into the state to open up shop.”

A Redditor identified as “AmateurHero” however had sympathy for the governor:

“This is f**king brutal,” AmateurHero said. “Every answer that he does give gets ripped apart by the constituents.

“It’s a minefield out here.”

‘WILL AVOID ANSWERING QUESTIONS HE DOESN’T WANT TO ANSWER’

To which “titanium_penis” replied: “The Internet is the worst place for a politician to be asked questions. The public will shamelessly use anonymity to rip him the f**k apart, and he will avoid answering questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

According to “ca990,” “O’Malley only won the election [of 2010, against former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.] because so many uneducated people in the state voted for the guy with the D next to his name and nothing else.

“He’s a complete moron and has done nothing positive for the state of Maryland.”

In one of the most up-voted posts in the thread — 679 points as of late evening — “vivnsam” observed:

“Lots of hard questions with very few responses from the Governor. I suspect he’s regretting his decision to do this…”

In the course of the day, O’Malley answered well over three dozen questions, many of which drew dozens of down-votes, although the entire session was given an up-vote of close to 64 percent.

Reddit gauges community sentiment by tabulating registered users’ reactions as they vote submissions “up” or “down” to organize the posts and determine their position on the site’s pages. Content entries are organized by areas of interest called “subredits.”

A FAILED ATTEMPT TO BOOST INTERNET CRED

The session began shortly before 9 a.m. Monday when O’Malley launched his opening thread in what turned out to be a failed attempt to boost his Internet cred:

“Hello Reddit, I’m Martin O’Malley, former mayor of Baltimore and current Governor of the great state of Maryland, where we’ve passed marriage equality, passed the Maryland DREAM Act, enacted tougher gun laws, held down the cost of college tuition, and driven down violent crime.

“Right after this AMA, I’ll be signing new laws to raise the minimum wage and expand opportunity for our middle class families.

“I’ll start answering your questions at about 9 am EST.”

After about two hours spent mostly dodging questions he left to sign the Maryland Minimum-Wage Increase Bill, raising the state’s minimum wage from its current $7.25 an hour to $8 an hour next January, $8.25 in July 2015, and $8.75 in July 2016.

From there it will go to $9.25 another year later and then reach the top amount in 2018.

Upon leaving, O’Malley texted the participants: “Thank you, Reddit…this was fun! I’m sorry I didn’t get to do more, I’ll try to answer more questions later. Right now, I’m going to sign some bills, including one to raise Maryland’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.”

At 1:12 p.m. he was “back to answer some more questions,” adding, “I got through as many questions as I could on the first round, and I think some of them got buried in the voting process.”

He left again at 2:15 p.m. with the explanation: “I answered a bunch more, but I have to go. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to answer more later this afternoon, but I’ll try if I can. Thanks again.”

‘TRIED TO ANSWER AS MANY QUESTIONS AS I COULD’

He returned at 4:45 “to try to answer a few more questions,” he said, and concluded at 5:32 by stating:

“Thanks for all the questions and engagement today. I tried to answer as many questions as I could during my first AMA!

“Once again, I signed a bill today to increase Maryland’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. I urge you to call on Congress to take similar action at the national level.

“Whether you agree or disagree with my answers today…I hope you’ll stay or get engaged in the democratic process. We need everyone’s voices to be heard.”

Redditor The Tenth State did not agree with the governor’s assessment of his performance:

“This is without a doubt the most horrendous AMA ever”! he (or she?) concluded.

O’Malley “is a TRUE politician.

“Or better known as a pile of trash that wears a suit everyday.”

“You’re the reason I left Maryland after 30 years. Well done, Governor,” said “btrlilwhtgrl” sarcastically. “And to think, this man wants to be president,” added “Skeeve987.”

In conclusion, “gg13078” had some good advice for the hapless prospective presidential candidate, along with a lofty, if questionable, opinion of all the Redditors:

“Never go on a website to answer questions from people smarter than you.”
 
alforman@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
EDITOR’S NOTE:  Offensive language used by three of the Redditors quoted in this story has been bleeped by Voice of Baltimore.