The third Democratic debate, held in New Hampshire on Saturday night, was often a two-person debate plus a third wheel: Martin O’Malley who has been polling at a distant third behind his opponents and lags by some 40 points in New Hampshire. The former Maryland governor came to the stage ready to answer questions that never came his way and to pick a few fights to boost his struggling campaign.

His desperation led to some memorable moments. When the debate turned to gun control, O’Malley attacked Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for representing a “flip-flopping, political approach of Washington.” Sanders replied, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s calm down a little bit, Martin,” and Clinton added, “Yes, let’s tell the truth, Martin.” Later, the audience booed O’Malley when he interrupted a discussion on ISIS with a jab about his opponents’ age, “May I offer a different generation’s perspective on this?” In one unfortunate prepared line, O’Malley referenced “the bickering back and forth” over the voter data scuffle—but just moments earlier, Clinton and Sanders had settled that matter. And ABC News moderators Martha Raddatz and David Muir repeatedly chided him for speaking out of turn.

In short, O’Malley didn’t look presidential. Yet there’s good reason to take him seriously, despite his awkward night.

O’Malley’s strategy throughout the campaign has been simple: to be the first candidate to stake out detailed, even wonky, progressive positions—with a focus on what a Democratic president can do despite a resistant GOP-led Congress. He released many of those plans in July, well before either Clinton or Sanders had rolled out policy specifics as official candidates.

O’Malley was the first candidate to come out with an in-depth immigration platform in July, one that the The Nation noted was “stunningly explicit.” It went beyond every Democrat’s endorsement of comprehensive immigration reform—a nonstarter in the GOP Congress—and instead looks at what more a president can do to ease the U.S.’s expensive reliance on detention centers.﻿ “Certainly compared to any of the other Democrats and all of the Republicans, [O’Malley’s platform] is so far more detailed and thorough than anyone else has been willing to express,” Beth Werlin, director of policy at the Immigration Policy Center, told The Nation. Five months after O’Malley announced his plan, Sanders released his own version that roughly matched O’Malley’s in ambition.