The Democratic Party marked failures over the past eight years because its members started thinking that the only offices that mattered were those of the president or the Senate, while allowing contributions and support to dry up in other vital spots, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, himself a presidential candidate in 2016, said Friday.
"We stopped acting like a party," O'Malley told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "I mean, we kidded ourselves in a believing that the only offices that mattered were the president of the United States or United States Senate."
O'Malley said that when he was the chair of the Democratic Governor's Association, he would speak with many "so-called active Democrats" on the phone and try to impress them that state politics matter, and many of them would inform him they only contributed to the presidential and Senate races.
"We have to field candidates for governor, good men and women up and down the ballot for state senate and state rep, because the truth is we were wiped out," said O'Malley. "We lost more governors' races and more state legislatures at local elections than any time in the eight-year period of the Democratic Party and shame of on us.
"We need to act like a party and realize that every state matters, and that's what I'm going to be putting my shoulder into."
However, O'Malley said that as for his own political aspirations, he will make a decision about trying a run in the 2020 presidential race "later," as he is focusing his attention on the 2018 midterm races.
He also said that Democrats are starting to come back in many states.
"In Oklahoma in the last seven special elections, a state [President] Donald Trump won by overwhelming elections, our candidates have won five of those seven races, flipping seats in many instances people thought we had no chance of winning," said O'Malley.
"But it's not just Oklahoma, it's New Hampshire, it's Iowa, it's South Florida, it's Washington State."
O'Malley said the Democrats' message is opportunity for all, as without inclusion for all, "our country doesn't have much of a reason for being."
The former governor also on Friday spoke out against the GOP tax reform proposals, saying there is nothing in them to motivate job creation, including doubling the standard deduction.
"That would be nice, but it's not worth bankrupting our country," said O'Malley. "If tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations created jobs and better wages, we would really be rolling in it now, wouldn't we? But it doesn't work like that. That's not how American capitalism works."