for posting this, Peacetrain.

The nice thing about Iowa.. is that we do get to meet candidates on a personal level.. and he had a really good turnout for this kind of venue.. I was surprised.. standing room only..

Highlight the 'standing room only' in your x-post at GDPrimaries???

I am in Minnesota and am hoping to get down to an O'Malley even sometime this fall.

I almost passed out from the heat.. it was your typical humid warm Iowa/Minnesota day and we were all scrunched into the house.. By the end of the the meet and greet the only thing I could think of was ICE!!

We don't get that hot usually until August at the earliest.

Nice to see that kind of turnout even in that heat.

I really love his roll up my sleeves and talk WITH people approach.

Pretty speeches and fiery orations only get you so far. You are talking AT people - when you need to be having a discussion WITH people.

Last edited Mon Jun 29, 2015, 10:07 AM - Edit history (1)

O'Malley doesn't want to lead a rebellion. He wants to fix what's not working. Psychologically speaking, he has a democratic rather than authoritarian personality. He doesn't want "followers"; he wants a "team."

Authoritarian personalities tell people what to do or believe. They have a "vertical" or "top down" approach to human relations. Democratic personalities engage in the give and take of dialogue and believe in working together to achieve common goals. They have a "horizontal" approach to human relations.

Authoritarian personalities make good demagogues. Democratic personalities work well with others and get things done with cooperative strategies.

Good employers and leaders of every kind realize that democratic strategies, in the end, work better than authoritarian strategies.

Put simply, democracy as a way of life, not just a political system, works. We just have to try using it now and then.

ETA: O'Malley has used the metaphor of leading a band to describe how many different individual points of view work together like different instruments to produce social or political harmony.