Baltimore Mayor Martin
O'Malley became the presumptive Democratic candidate after Montgomery
County Executive Doug Duncan withdrew before the primary, eliminating
a fight for the party's nomination and freeing up O'Malley's resources
for the general election race against Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
Democrats view O'Malley as one of the party's best opportunities
to unseat a Republican incumbent governor.
O'Malley's
gubernatorial campaign is centered on his six years as Baltimore's
mayor, a position he won in 2000 with 91 percent of the vote and
has since received laudatory national attention.
In 2002, Esquire magazine called him "the best young mayor
in America," and Time magazine profiled him in their 2005 story,
"The 5 Best Big-City Mayors," which listed O'Malley as
the "wonk 'n' roller."
The positive media coverage has largely focused on his record of
reducing the violent crime rate in Baltimore, which had a notoriously
high murder rate throughout the 1990s. But critics believe that
O'Malley's record on crime is less than stellar.
Even though violent crime rates are lower than they were before
he became mayor, the rate increased in 2004 and O'Malley has been
unable to make good on his 2000 campaign promise to lower the murder
rate to 175 homicides a year. Baltimore still ranks as one of the
most dangerous cities in the country, according to Morgan Quitno
Press, a Kansas-based company that annually analyzes crime data.
O'Malley also has received accolades for the government efficiency
program he implemented called CitiStat that won the "Innovations
in Government" award from Harvard University. Inspired by a
similar system used by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani,
CitiStat has made the city's bureaucracies become more accountable
and run more smoothly. In its first year of operation, city officials
estimated that the program saved $13 million.
Born on Jan.18, 1963, O'Malley grew up in the Maryland suburbs of
Washington, D.C. in a staunchly Catholic and Democratic family as
the oldest of six children. After graduating from private school
in Washington, O'Malley attended Catholic University, but took time
off from school to work on the 1984 presidential campaign for Colorado
Sen. Gary Hart. O'Malley received a bachelor's degree from Catholic
University in 1985 and his law degree from the University of Maryland
in 1988.
While in law school, O'Malley served as the field director for Democrat
Barbara Mikulski's 1986 campaign for one of Maryland's U.S. Senate
seats. Mikulski won, and after the election, O'Malley served as
a legislative fellow in her Senate office.
He continued his public service, moving up the political ladder
from state's attorney for Baltimore City to a member of the Baltimore
City Council. In 2000, he defeated 16 other candidates for the Democratic
nomination for mayor of Baltimore and was easily elected to office
that November.
O'Malley is married to Catherine Curran O'Malley, the daughter of
Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., and has two sons
and two daughters.
Anthony Brown, O'Malley's running mate, is majority whip in the
Maryland House of Delegates and represents part of the mostly African-American
Prince George's County. A 1984 Harvard and ROTC graduate, Brown
was an aviation officer in the Army for five years and currently
is in the Army Reserve; he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 as part
of his service.
-- Compiled by Brian Wolly
for the Online NewsHour
O'Malley's
gubernatorial campaign is centered on his six years as Baltimore's
mayor, a position he won in 2000 with 91 percent of the vote and
has since received laudatory national attention. 
