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While answering a questions about whether he’d accept contributions from big businesses to his campaign, O’Malley said, “I understand I’ve been named public enemy number one by Goldman-Sachs, so while I’m three days a presidential candidate, I am one day a public enemy of Goldman-Sachs.”

O’Malley, also a former mayor of Baltimore, hit populist high notes as he charted the history of America’s workers and wage from its high-functioning peaks during the New Deal, citing a sea change 30 years ago that brought the U.S. economy to the perilous state it’s in today.

“We need to realize that our economy is not money, our economy is people, and we need to put wage policies at the center,” he said.

He later added, “No state and no city is an island, we need to get our national economy functioning again by getting wages to start rising instead of declining.”

Even in response to questions unrelated to America’s economic climate or Clinton herself, O’Malley seemed to work income inequality and the importance of taking down big money giants into many of his answers.

When faced with a damning statement from the Maryland ACLU that named his legacy as governor, specifically his “zero tolerance” policing strategy, as a culprit in creating high tension and distrust between the citizens and police in Baltimore, O’Malley cited his record of cutting the crime rate and number of police-involved shootings “to the lowest level I think in modern times,” but ultimately brought his message back to income inequality.

“These policing incidents are the spark, but the rage that erupted in Baltimore that night was not only about policing, and not only about race – it was about the fact that our economy is leaving huge portions of our population behind,” he said in reference to the April rioting after the funeral of Freddie Gray, the man who died in police custody.

#USHCC @GovernorOMalley agrees with idea of common core - talks about good record w schools in Bmore while governor pic.twitter.com/gEzaUFO53g

— Ali Dukakis (@ajdukakis) June 3, 2015

Of course, the populist message isn’t unique to O’Malley. Also playing on the Democratic primary field is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, who solidified his reputation as a fierce critic committed to taking down Wall Street fat cats far before he set his sights on the White House.

And with the effort to draft perhaps big business’ greatest watchdog in government, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to run for office officially coming to an end this week, it seems O’Malley may be sensing it’s his time to distinguish himself on one of the issues that matter to the party most – and that happens to be an area of weakness for his main opponent, Clinton.

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