PORTSMOUTH — Following Sen. Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Hillary Clinton at Portsmouth High School last Tuesday, Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis launched canvasses across the state Saturday.

O’Malley spoke to a group of about 40 at the Portsmouth Democratic headquarters on Brewery Lane Saturday morning.

‘I’m talking especially to the younger people in the room,” he said. “They may never again have the chance to make such an impact on the future of the country.”

O’Malley said there was a robust contest in the Democratic party primary with debates over the “ways, the means and the degrees.”

“But you didn’t see us in our party denigrating women, bashing immigrants, trying to deny rights to gay couples and their kids,” he said. (The Republican) primary was about who hates other people the most, wasn’t it? That sort of scapegoating is not what moves our country forward.”

With the internet and all the social media, O’Malley said the nation's biggest problem is that people have forgotten how to talk with each other.

“What you’re doing knocking on doors, is not a small thing,” he said. “If we’re going to move forward as a country, and I believe we are once we shake ourselves out of this time of fear and loathing, is going to be because of the individual conversations that each of us have with our neighbors and engaging people in their hearts and in their imaginations towards seeing the country we want for our kids.”

He talked about the “truths that unite us as people.”

“One of them is that the economy is not money, its people, and our economy works best when we can all get ahead,” he said.

“Unlike Pence, and I wouldn’t give a ‘Trumpence’ for that ticket, by the way. This is a guy who distinguished himself as a governor by raging against what he thought were wages that were going too high in his state.”

Trump named Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate on Friday.

O’Malley pointed out that Indiana now ranks 38th among the 50 states in terms of median income, well below New Hampshire.

He added that the country should embrace climate change and all the jobs it will usher in.

He brought up the current instability in Turkey.

“Can you imagine, there’s going to be one of two people sitting in that situation room watching events in a sort of tinder box for the world and having to make a call on our behalf as commander-in-chief,” he said. “Of the two candidates we have to choose from, only Hillary Clinton is ready to do that.”

O’Malley told the canvassers that they might run into people who are infatuated with Trump.

“You might borrow a page from a Cialis ad, and say that when the infatuation lasts more than four hours, see a doctor,” he said to much laughter.

“Fear and anger has never built a great county,” O’Malley said. “Donald Trump has made himself a vehicle for fear and anger, for discord and division, for the scapegoating of others, denigrating of religions, people of color, and minorities. That’s not the America that we carry in our hearts. That’s not the America that Hillary Clinton has fought for every day of her life. I’m honored to be in this fight with you.”

O’Malley concluded by say that Americans are stronger together that there is dignity in every person.

“We all share a common good and we have the tough leaders that will restore that common good and bring us together, not because these times are easy, but because they’re tough,” he said. “She’s tough. He’s not.”

Bill Shaheen, husband of U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, introduced O’Malley.

He said Tuesday’s event at PHS was “magical.”

“I believe great things are going to happen,” he said. “But it will take all of us to do it. Hillary can’t do it alone.”

Portsmouth resident Barbara DeStefano said Clinton needs to get a percentage of the votes of those who were for Sanders. She was at Sanders’ endorsement Tuesday at PHS and said some of the crowd “was not quite ready (to give up), but I hope they realize a vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump.”

Canvassing took place in Wards 1, 3, and 4 Saturday.

Other canvassing kickoff events across the state were organized Saturday in Keene, Hanover, Concord, Nashua and Manchester.