Let me say this - Choosing between O'Malley and Sanders

[JDPriestly]

20. They are both good people with good ideas, but O'Malley is too soft-spoken, not

hard-hitting enough to win a national campaign against the nasty Republicans.

I think Sanders is the top candidate for 2016. O'Malley might make a good vice presidential candidate and possibly run for the top position later on.

O'Malley is not well enough known nationally and doesn't have the kind of colorful personality and distinct speech that Bernie has. Also, Bernie has the unique ability to answer questions because he knows exactly what he thinks and has thought nearly every issue through thousands of times. When he hasn't thought something through he says so right away.

There are reasons for Bernie's quick ascension in the polls. He is an unusually good candidate -- not just because of his ideas but because of his manner, his honesty, sincerity, his straightforwardness, just who he is.

Not that O'Malley is weak. But O'Malley is not yet to the point that Bernie has reached -- where he knows himself and what he thinks and is not ashamed of his own views or afraid of what people will think of him. I call that a state of grace. I am not referring to a religious concept. What I mean by state of grace is the feeling that a great artist or singer or actor has when he or she is completely him- or herself, "performing" completely without pretense or distance between performer and audience. It is a state of giving, a state of dedication to the moment.

Bernie is in that sort of state of grace in which he is himself no matter what. He is not self-conscious when he speaks because he is on a mission to tell the truth and to help people. That is what I mean by "a state of grace." He is not thinking of himself, how he looks, whether what he is saying is "right," will sell, is what his staff wants him to say. He is given to the goal of changing the nation for the better.

It's a state of grace. Teddy Roosevelt was in that state. Abraham Lincoln at times. It is not a state in which the candidate does not care. To the contrary. It is a state in which the candidate forgets his own ego because he or she is so dedicated to serving the people.

O'Malley is not yet in that state of grace. We haven't had a candidate in that state before Bernie in all of my lifetime. That is why I think Bernie may win. He is completely in a state of grace with regard to his candidacy. It is not something he chose. It is who he is in this moment.