Martin O'Malley Makes First Campaign Stop in SF to Talk Tech.

Clean energy, better wages for restaurant workers and faster alerts to locate missing children— these were some of the civic tech pitches Martin O'Malley listened to during his first presidential campaign stop in San Francisco Wednesday night.

The former Maryland governor, who is trailing far behind Hillary Clinton in polls, called Clinton's email use a huge distraction for the Democratic party at a campaign stop earlier today in Las Vegas.

O'Malley joked that San Francisco's unusual warm weather was nothing compared to the heat in Las Vegas, where he spoke in front of Donald Trump's hotel.

On Wednesday, the pitches flew fast at The Hall, a food court in the former Hollywood Billiards building in the Tenderloin, located just a few blocks from Twitter's headquarters, a stretch of San Francisco that's increasingly getting gentrified as more tech companies open shop in the area. . .

On Thursday, O'Malley will be talking with Guydon and other tech industry leaders at Brigade, Sean Parker's nonpartisan tech startup. Net neutrality, patents and tech innovation are on the agenda.

"I've been active as a presidential candidate for just 74 days, we've just begun our fight," O'Malley said to loud cheers from the crowd.

O'Malley stressed open data and civic engagement can improve government. "Our government doesn't belong to the Koch brothers, it doesn't belong to super PACs, it belongs to us," he said.

He ended by asking the crowd to join him for a beer, saying: "Our economy is people. We are on the threshold of a new era of American progress and we are in need of renewed faith and a new leader."

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