O'Malley comes across as less robotic and walled-off than many candidates. [View all]

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Martin O'Malley campaigns some more in Iowa.

Sometimes it seems O'Malley, former member of a Celtic rock band, is the only presidential contender having any fun in a campaign of insults, the drip-drip-drip of Hillary Clinton's email problems, and warnings of doom from the left and the right.

"You've got to make the offering with joy - otherwise why do any of this?" O'Malley said in an interview. "For all the pity party and the down-in-the mouth talk in the campaign, in truth there is not a stronger people on the planet. I'm optimistic." . .

O'Malley plans to win the Iowa caucuses the old-fashioned way. He's made 14 trips to Iowa and spent 27 days there, holding 76 events. He's hit 40 counties, more than any Democrat, and has a staff of 30.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum showed it can be done, rising from 4 percent a week before the 2012 GOP caucuses to win by a handful of votes over eventual nominee Mitt Romney. O'Malley takes some inspiration from his ideological opposite.

"I had a political consultant friend who went with the Hillary Corporation, and when he called to let me know, he said, 'I wouldn't want to see you become the Rick Santorum of the Democrats,' " O'Malley said. "I said, 'Well, in Iowa I'd actually like that.' "

He has an earlier model, too.

O'Malley got his start in politics in 1983, when he interrupted his studies at Catholic University to help organize Iowa for then-Sen. Gary Hart. He crossed the state in that campaign's "Van Force 1," sleeping on supporters' floors, carrying his guitar. Hart nearly won the 1984 nomination.

"Folks here . . . have seen little-known candidates before and they have made them by upsetting the applecart," O'Malley said.

Jo Ann Beall, who was at the Webster County Democrats' pork-chop dinner in Fort Dodge to hear Sanders speak on Sunday, was leaning toward O'Malley but uncommitted.

"I like O'Malley because he has the same stands as Bernie, but he has a record," Beall said. "He has accomplished things." She's ruled out Clinton. "I'm afraid, if it's her, we'll have to spend all our time defending her."

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