The most amusing part of this story, aside from it being true? Martin O’Malley brings it up himself in this appearance on Morning Joe. And … it works as a kind of earnestness blended with self-deprecation. Otherwise, it would sound like a perfect satire from The Onion rather than news from Politico:

Amid a vicious winter storm on Monday that forced some presidential campaigns to cancel their scheduled campaign stops in Iowa, only Martin O’Malley decided to press on.

And one man at his last event, the only person to show up, in fact, “was glad to see me,” the former Maryland governor said. But he still would not commit to caucus for O’Malley.

“The very last event of the night, we actually had a whopping total of one person show up, but by God, he was glad to see me. So we spent the time with him,” the Democratic presidential candidate told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, speaking from Des Moines.

ABC News reporter Sarah Beckman caught the summit meeting for posterity:

Kenneth braved the snow storm to meet with @MartinOMalley in Tama. #iawx #iacaucus pic.twitter.com/xvB9S8hDwh

— Sarah Beckman (@SarahBeckman3) December 29, 2015

O’Malley’s position in Iowa isn’t entirely desperate. He’s scored as high as 10% in the latest Gravis poll, but he’s getting buried by both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a 3-way race. (In the GOP race, 10% would be a first-tier position.) O’Malley will get some caucus-goers, but the likelihood of him even challenging for second place is remote. What O’Malley needs is more visibility, which is the reason why they persevered through a major snowstorm just to have a chat with Kenneth, on the chance that more people might show up. You don’t cancel events when you’re a distant third in a 3-way race.

Speaking of visibility, O’Malley spars a bit with former DNC chair Howard Dean on the sparse debate schedule. Dean tells O’Malley that he should be teaming up with Sanders to demand more debates from current DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but O’Malley tells Dean that Sanders doesn’t want more debates either. “You think I haven’t done that? I’ve done that. I asked Senator Sanders,” O’Malley replies. “Senator Sanders didn’t want to do more debates either. He kind of likes where it is.” He then argues that the same concentration of wealth and power that Sanders claims to oppose “is happening in the Democratic Party right now.”

Yes it is, and Hillary Clinton made sure of that long before O’Malley got into the race. And … that seems to be working for her, too.