Nov. 14, 2019 - Former Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) Announces Candidacy

- Patrick had said he would not run in a Dec. 6, 2018 Facebook post.

- He announced via video, led off with an interview on "CBS This Morning" and later in the morning filed for the New Hampshire primary in the Secretary of State's Office in Concord, NH (see transcript of press conference below.

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Former Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA)
Press Conference Following Filing for New Hampshire Primary
Secretary of State's Office
Concord, NH
November 14, 2019

Well good morning everybody and thank you for coming.  Can you hear me alright; am I close enough to the mics?  Great.  And thank you for your willingness to do this inside; it's not a good day to be out.

I've just filed my papers to compete in the Democratic primary here in New Hampshire.  It's a, for me, extraordinarily humbling and sober and exciting moment all at once. 

It's a long journey that this represents for me, having come from the South Side of Chicago, where I live with, grew up with my mom and my sister and our grandparents in our grandparents' two-bedroom tenament.  My mother and sister and I used to share one of those bedrooms and a set of bunk beds, so you'd go from top bunk to the bottom bunk to the floor, every third night on the floor.  I went to big, overcrowded, under-resourced, sometimes violent public schools.

But, you know, for all the things we didn't have, we had a very strong sense of community, because that was a time when every child was under the jurisdiction of every single adult on the block.  If you messed up down the street in front of Miss. Jones' she go upside your head as if you were hers and then call home so you got it two times, and I think what those adults were trying to teach us is that membership in a community is understanding the stake that each of us has in our neighbors' dreams and struggles as well as our own.

I think that sense of community, and the things that government can do, and others can do in the private sector to make a way, not just encouragement, but actually make a practical way for others is one of the reasons why I was able to get a college degree and a law school degree, to practice civil rights law, business law, to serve as head of the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, to work in business large and small, to serve for eight years as governor of Massachusetts.

 I have lived my American Dream.  But I know, and you know and all of your viewers and listeners know that the American Dream has become more and more out of reach over time.  It has gotten worse under the leadership of our current president, but it didn't start under the leadership of our current president.

We have been disinvesting, walking away, giving up on investing our time and our ideas and our money in the kinds of things that enable people to lift themselves and their families to a better life. So that in many respects the anger and the anxiety that I see abroad all around America is not only justified, but it's familiar; it's familiar.

Because I can remember what it felt like when the, when the steel mills closed and, and left people feeling like the economy had sort of just gotten up and left us behind on the South Side.  I remember what it felt like and looked like when opioids came to fill that void in my own home let alone the neighborhood.

And I remember what it felt like, and still do, and did throughout my adult years and in my campaigns for governor of Massachusetts and in service to have people's issues come to the top of the agenda during the campaign and then vanish in between the campaigns.

So I think that there is a sort of once in a lifetime appetite today to bring big solutions, big enough for the challenges we face.  But I think that there has to be more than the big solutions.  We have to use those solutions to heal us.

We have a really, really talented, marvelous Democratic field.  Many of them are my friends.  I talk to some of them regularly.  They have made me proud to be a Democrat.  But in many ways it has felt to me watching the race unfold that we're getting beginning to break into sort of camps of nostalgia on the one hand, and big ideas, sort of my way or no way on the other.

And I think we have to be about how we bring people in, how we bring people along, and how we yield to the possibility that somebody else or even some other party may have a good idea, as good or better than our.

That's the kind of leadership I have brought to settings in the private sector and the public sector, the kind of leadership I want to bring right now.  And with that, I'm just, I'm excited.  I am, I am humbled and I am fired up to, to launch my candidacy for President of the United States.

FRED:  What changed between December and today?

PATRICK:  Yeah, last year.

You know what, can we start with, do you mind Fred, with our, our hosts... in New Hampshire?  I'll come back.

FRED:  Yes, of course. 

PATRICK:  Unless you want to ask the same question.

JOHN DiSTASO:  Well no, not exactly.  What was, what was, there must have been a tipping point at one point where you did go from not, you know, not running to saying I think I'm going to run.
What was a watershed moment or event or development that put you kind of past that 50:50 mark?

PATRICK:  You know I'd say to turn it around, I was ready to go last year.  We spent a lot of time Diane and I and the family thinking about it and, and trying to sort out mainly the question of why; not so much the how, but the why.  And, and we got really, really close.  And just about, what was a two weeks before Thanksgiving, Diane was diagnosed with uterine cancer.  And it's the sort of thing that brings you brings you right back to Earth.  And we felt that, I felt that the right thing to do for her, for us was to focus on that.

We celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary in May, and I am proud to say, I am delighted and relieved to say that Diane is cancer free.  And so we've, we've been watching the race and thinking about it and frankly wondering whether it was even possible. 

Some of the, some of the obstacles beyond Diane's health are still there.  It's a big and talented field, really talented field.  And, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to break through not just because it's this stage in the election but,  or in the campaigns, but it's, you know, it's hard to break through without being a celebrity or sensational and I am neither of those things.

But I have been worried that we have this amazing moment where there, the appetite for solutions that meet the big challenges we have is right there, and I don't want to see us miss that chance and so I want to bring, I want to offer a kind of leadership which is about both an ambitious agenda and an opportunity through delivering that agenda to actually bring us as a nation back together.

REPORTER:  Governor...

PATRICK:  Hang on one sec.  I promise I'll stay as long as you like that I want to just be respectful.


KEVIN LANDRIGAN:  You spoke with President Obama yesterday.  Could you share with us generally what advice he's given you having gone through this?

PATRICK:  I could.  I won't.  I will say look, you know, the president I were friends for I don't know 15 years before he was president and we've remained friends.  We haven't talked a lot in the last little while because he's been busy trying to get his book done but back, I don't know, a year and a half ago, when we were actively looking at getting into the race we spent some time together and he gave me a lot of great insights about his own experience, about his experience with some of the other candidates, and what he thought the strengths and weaknesses of a campaign, of my campaign might be. 

And we've talked about that some more recently, and he's been, I think, entirely appropriate in saying look, this is your decision; no one else's.  And I'm not encouraging you or discouraging you. Be clear eyed about how heavy the lift is.  The way I described it to him, is that this is you know if running for president is a Hail Mary under any circumstances, this is like a Hail Mary from two stadiums over.  And that's about all you're going to get from me in the way of sports metaphors. But, you know, he believes like I do that a competitive primary is good for party, it's good for democracy, particularly if we keep it positive.


PAUL STEINHAUSER:  Governor at the end of your video this morning you put out, you call for a future not built for you, but with you.  And I'm wondering if I'm reading that as maybe a criticism of your fellow Bay Stater Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders who are pushing big government ideas.

PATRICK:  Well first of all I want to, I want to acknowledge my, my friendship and enormous respect, in particular with Senator Warren.  I talked to her last night, and I think it was kind of a hard conversation for both of us frankly.  I don't know Senator Sanders as well, but I, I credit him in large measure for bringing the question of Medicare for All to a more popular, meaning more broad-based, discussion.  A Ted Kennedy idea, actually.  So, each of them have contributed to improving our, our dialogue and frankly, our ambition as Democrats, and that's a terrific, terrific thing.

But I think that if we want solutions that last, they can't be solutions that feel to, to the voting public as if they are just Democratic solutions.  I am proud of the fact that we as a party and that the field of Democratic candidates have committed ourselves to universal care, to really delivering health care that is affordable and of high quality to everybody.  And having done this for 98% of the residents in, in the Commonwealth, I understand there is more than one way to skin that cat.  And so, you know, saying that, I guess I would put it this way, we spent—. 

Let's see, Governor Romney signed our health reform bill before he left office and it took effect the day I took office.  This is one of the things that I used to hate it being called Romneycare; it should be called Patrickcare.  But we did, we did I want to say, three, four, you may remember, big healthcare reform bills, after that, after that.  And that's because the coalition of patient advocates, policymakers, business leaders, you know faith community, this broad coalition that had invented health care reform, stuck together to refine it.  We kept learning as we went.  And I think that's what's going to have to happen for any of the big solutions.

I want us to have an ambitious agenda; I want that.  That is the goal.  The means for getting there can vary.  And I think a little humility about, about that, a little openness from others about, about making a place for their ideas and perspectives, is actually the way you get to solutions that aren't just Democratic solutions but are American solutions that last.

REPORTER:  Can you talk, can you go into detail...?  Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry.


REPORTER:  So you say you understand how of, the mechanics of getting elected, and you also describe it as an adjacent Hail Mary.  Can you talk about how...?

PATRICK:  The plan?  You want the plan? 

REPORTER:  Can you share?

PATRICK:  Talk to him.  [Abe Rakof]

Look I think, I'm not being, I'm not being disrespectful.  When I say [inaud.] I understand much more clearly, and I think frankly, it was one of the reasons why it was clear to me I had to make a decision—hat it takes to actually get on ballots, you know, and it's different in every state as you know and the deadlines are, are different.

I will say that from the perspective of the voters, it's early.  Voters in, all across the country are in some cases just tuning in, and in many cases, haven't made their decisions.  And I'm not asking them to make their decision today.  I'm asking them to give me a chance.  I'm asking them to, to teach me, to show me how they live their lives and how their needs can be met so that government plays its role to help them help themselves

REPORTER:  Do you feel the same way about of donors, are they just tuning in?  I mean obviously you're gonna have to come up with some cash.

PATRICK:  No.  I get that, I get that.  And I understand what we have to do, but you know what I've, I've lived a political life and I would say as a black man a whole life, dealing with skepticism.  I'm used to that.  And I keep, I keep doing everything I can with the help and the grace of others to beat those expectations and I intend to do that this time.


REPORTER:  Can you talk a little bit about why it was hard to have the conversation with Senator Warren.  I don't know if you would care to share any details...

PATRICK:  Well its just that I'm incredibly fond of her, and she and Bruce are friends of Diane and mine.  We get together from from time to time.  She is incredibly smart, and she is incredibly thorough in her policy positions, and frankly, she has the best and most disciplined campaign out there from where, from, from what I have observed.  She's contributed a lot to getting things, to advancing her campaign.

But I think the actual business of advancing an agenda once elected is a different, is a different kind of undertaking.  And I frankly, and I, you know, I've run for one thing two times.  But in my experience, you have to start that work in the campaign, not after the campaign, and not run a different campaign in a primary than you do in a general.  You have to be, you have to be accretive, as they say, you have to add, not push away from the, from the beginning.  And that's not a comment just on my friend Senator Warren and her campaign, it's a comment on how the conversation is evolving in the field, and it's a big, big watch out, and I think frankly a big, big opportunity.

Let me start and we just go around this way.  Is that all right?

REPORTER:  Governor...

PATRICK:  Did you get what you needed?  Excuse me.

REPORTER:  He can go first....I'll go after.

PATRICK:  Just tell me, until I get to know you...


DAVE WEIGEL:  Dave Weigel from The Washington Post.

Would you discourage supporters from forming a super PAC, and could you explain how what you did at Bain is different than what Mitt Romney did at Bain... ?

PATRICK:  So, yeah, two things.  I think probably,  and I guess I can't you know, direct it, but it'd be hard for me to see how we put all the resources together without a PAC of some kind.  I don't know what that is.  I don't know where that will come from.  And I wish it weren't so; I wish the campaigns weren't as expensive, and I wish that the influence of money that we've seen in Washington wasn't as great as it is.  I'm going to have a lot more to say about that. In what I what I describe as a Democracy Agenda in the coming days.

In terms of my work at Bain Capital you know I smile because when I was co chair of the Obama Biden campaign in 2012, and, and there was all the attacks on, on Bain Capital on account of Mitt Romney, you know I was asked about that and I didn't, I didn't buy it then and II don't buy it now. You know there's a right way and a wrong way to do everything.  And, and some transactions in private equity are going to go, going to go sideways, with or without by the way, private equity,

But I do think that capitalism, and I am a capitalist, has a lot to answer for.  There are reasons why people, and justifiable reasons, why people feel like, like our economy and our government have been tilted too much in the direction of moneyed interests.  Some of those are companies; some of those are individuals. There is a way out of that; there is a way, and we're going to have something to say about that in our Democracy Agenda.

WEIGEL:  And quickly will you release your tax returns from your years at Bain, your years at Ameriquest.

PATRICK:  Sure.  I wasn't at Americaquest. 

WEIGEL:  I'm sorry.

PATRICK:  But, yeah, you know, we'll get all that together.  I don't know how far back we'll go but we'll get that together.

WEIGEL:  Before the primary?

PATRICK:  Oh yeah.


REPORTER:  We were talking in the hallway about what the voters get from you being in the field that they're not already getting.  What's the answer?

PATRICK:  Well, part of is what I said. It's another option. You know it's interesting...

REPORTER:  They've got a lot though.

PATRICK:  I understand that, and those of you who cover politics and those of us who follow it feel like, you know, that's plenty.  But I want to tell you, voters aren't there yet; they haven't settled. They haven't.  But the most encouraging thing, Allie, from my perspective, is this point I was making earlier about the appetite for for solutions that are, you know, sized for the challenges we face.  You know, civilization, the extinction of civilization on account of climate change or how we really get a, an economy that is growing out to the middle and the marginalized and not just up to the well-connected.  Those are big ideas, big changes.  We need to set a tax system that is radically simplified and fairer.  Because, you know, but we start there, we don't start with the question of what it is we want government to do, and not do, and then, and then build from there. And I think that's the kind of, that's the most appealing thing about this moment, that the appetite for those big ideas is there, and, and I just want to make sure that we're bringing a spirit of engagement and inclusion to that debate; that's what I'm trying to do.


REPORTER:  Governor...

PATRICK:  Oh, there you are.

REPORTER:  [inaud.] from Politico.  One of the things I'm hearing from all the campaigns here is the ground game is the number one most important thing.  Bernie Sanders...almost a hundred staffers here.  Just in terms of the logistics of hiring a hundred people in the next 90 days, how are you going to compete with that?

PATRICK:  Well you have to watch; you know we're gonna have to build that as we go, but they are right.  I love the idea of grassroots campaigning.  I like to think we made it, we made it legitimate again, in, in 2005 and 2006 when I was running the first time.  I think it's incredibly important; I also think it's important that the ground game be about engaging people who have checked out or who feel left back, and part of that, if I may say, is talking to folks who don't already agree with us.  This is to my point earlier about how you, how you use the campaign to develop a constituency for the agenda and making clear that, that you know this campaign is not about me, it's about us, all of us.


REPORTER:  Governor.  I have to make sure...  Last year, several high members of the Obama administration seemed to be saying they were getting behind you, were encouraging you.  In fact, reportedly Valerie Jarrett said that it was what her heart desired, your candidacy. 

PATRICK:  I heard that.

REPORTER:  Have you spoken to Valerie Jarrett recently or are you getting some encouragement from high level members of the Obama administration?

PATRICK:  Well, I have a lot of friends in that administration.  I have talked to Valerie.  I think she's been great, and she's also been, you know, sober.  You know, someone asked the question earlier about the cruelty, my comment a year ago about the cruelty of the process.  It's not less cruel today, and I sense that you agree.  It's not less cruel today.

You know folks have been, you know, encouraging but also—.  I mean I get a lot of comments that go like, like this: as a citizen, I'm thrilled; as your friend, I wish you wouldn't.

And you know, I appreciate the honesty of that, and that's the sort of thing I've gotten from Valerie and others.

REPORTER:  And are you hoping and assuming that a number of your very close, your senior, former senior advisors and whatnot will come over your way even if they've gone on to some other campaign?

PATRICK:  Oh listen folks have made commitments. You know Doug Rubin is working on Tom Steyer's campaign, John Walsh working with Sen. Markey and, and they are, they are true to their commitments as honorable of people in exactly the way I expect they would be.  I've talked to each of them at length. And I've talked to them about whether I'm seeing this, this opportunity clearly, and whether there is in fact something different that the way I campaign and the way I've tried to govern and the way I've tried to live my life, that could be brought into this race.  And I think. I think that they have said that is true and I agree that that there's a path if we get going.


REPORTERS:  crosstalk...

PATRICK:  I promise, I'm coming your way; I just want to go around.  I promise.

JEFF ZELENY:  Thank you very much governor.  You mentioned nostalgia, a couple of different times—

PATRICK:  Just tell me your name,

JEFF ZELENY:  Jeff Zeleny from CNN.

PATRICK:  Jeff, I'm sorry.  I'll get to know you all.

JEFF ZELENY:  You've mentioned nostalgia a couple of different times.  As you've been watching this campaign from the outside, from the sidelines, is Joe Biden's nostalgiic campaign not working in your view?

PATRICK:  Well, look, I, I'm a big, big fan of Joe Biden.  I've known him for many, many years.  He was chair of the Judiciary Committee when I was nominated for the Civil Rights Division and he had my back then and I've tried to have his back since.  I think he is extraordinary public servant, frankly, whose deep, deep personal empathy doesn't always come through in this campaign.

But I think that the instinct that his campaign seems to have, to say, you know, to project in effect if we just, if we just get rid, if you will, the incumbent we can go back to doing what we used to do, misses the moment.  Because, you know, the one truth in my opinion that candidate Trump spoke in 2016, was when he said that conventional or establishment politics isn't working well enough for most people.  And by the way, that's the same thing Sen. Sanders was saying and it's the same thing Barak Obama said a decade and a half before

ZELENY:  In the same vein, do you think Sen. Warren's candidacy, as you've been watching it, is too divisive?

PATRICK:  Well, look, I'm not, I don't want to be a pundit on other people's campaigns.

ZELENY:  Well now you're a rival running against them...

PATRICK:  Well that's right.  Thank you for that.  And let me be clear about a ground rule for me going forward.  I am not trying to climb up by pulling anybody else down. We are going to compete and compete robustly, and we're going to compete, not just by making the contrast, but we're going to show differences in the way that we that we campaign and the way that we govern.


REPORTER:  Does this feel like you are jumping into a moving car that's speeding down the highway?

PATRICK:  Yeah, but isn't it like that even if I started campaigning, you know, years ago, like some of the other competitors.  We have, our campaigns are too long and too expensive.  And there were good and sound reasons for not getting in when we did.  And as I said earlier, I think in response to was it your question Allie or yours?  I feel like, you know, those of us who follow all this and cover all this, feel like it's late but most people don't.


REPORTER:  Governor, there are reports of another school shooting out in California.

PATRICK:  Oh Lord.

REPORTER:  Given your focus on finding not Democratic solutions, but solutions for all Americans, and also the void in the field left by Beto O'Rourke who was a full champion on the issue and having Abe as your campaign manager, how would you approach the issue of gun violence?

PATRICK:  Well I think first of all, we've got to, we got to deal with a, an exaggeration really, of what the, of what the Second Amendment is about.  We can have, and should have strong controls to keep particularly military-style weapons out of the hands of civilians.  You know strategies for, for universal background checks and, and registration for example.  Some of the gun loopholes that we dealt with in in Massachusetts are national issues.  You know this whole idea of being able to, you know, buy as many guns as you want, over and over again, rather than limiting those and limiting straw purchases which is a huge problem, where you know guns get purchased by someone who is authorized to do so but then sold without a tracking to, to someone who isn't.  We ought to deal with those, those issues, and I think on many of them Congressman O'Rourke was right.  By the way most of the American public overwhelmingly want that outcome or those outcomes.  The reason we don't get them has to do with the kinds of solutions we're going to try to bring forward in our Democracy Agenda.  And it has to do with money in politics and the influence of that.  It has to do with with gerrymandering so that, so that members of the House and, members of the House in particular, choose their voters rather than the other way other way around.  It has to do with the influence of money, and a host of others.  So it's not just that one issue we want addressed doesn't happen; it's that the outcome is engineered by bad choices we've been making over a long period of time.

REPORTERS:  crosstalk...  ABE RAKOV:  Two more and then we're going to Manchester too.   So go we're going to give you...  Let's do two more here. 

REPORTER:  On mandatory buybacks though to follow up. Do you agree with O'Rourke on that issue?

Well, I think the idea of having some way to actually get the, the military style weapons that are out there, off the streets and not just kind of, you know, cutting off future sales is a great idea.  I'd love to believe that we can do it with voluntary buybacks.  I want to evaluate what the trades are, if any, in doing it on a mandatory basis.


REPORTERS:  crosstalk...  ABE RAKOV:  ...last question.

PATRICK:  Hang on one second.  One, two, and three, and then I'll come back to you, okay?  You were not the one that was pointing to.

Just tell me your name.

REPORTER:  This is [inaud.] from the New York Times. 

PATRICK:  Yeah.

REPORTER: Other candidates in the space have also mades the pitch of unity and threading the lane between Biden and Warren, mainlyy Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker.  What does your campaign bring that that they haven't yet?

PATRICK:  Well listen, I think, I think their messages have been, have been in many ways right.  Those two are also, Sen. Harris and Sen. Booker, are also friends of mine, and I respect them and I've talked to them from time to time, as they've been on the campaign, on the campaign trail.  For reasons, you know, as I say, I don't want to turn into a pundit, but there are a variety of reasons why their, their campaigns in some quarters are just not getting traction.  I don't think that's about the about the message.  I think it may have something to do—I don't know why it is, but I think I do have some, I do have a record of delivering that kind of leadership. 

And anticipating your question, we didn't get everything right nobody ever does, but we got a whole lot right, and leaving the Commonwealth, after a, a you know, the worst economic downturn in living memory at the top in the nation in student achievement, in healthcare coverage, in veteran services, in entrepreneurial activity, in in energy efficiency, with responsible budgets and the highest bond rating in our history at a 25 year employment high didn't happen because of the governor alone.  It happened because we brought together people with a wide variety of different views and pointed in the direction we were going and charged them, all of us to work together to reach it.


REPORTER:  Governor, earlier when you were talking about your conversation with President Obama you referenced this is basically a Hail Mary from two stadiums over.  So that's a pretty long shot. What makes you confident you can win this.?

PATRICK:  Well look, my ability to win this, to state the obvious, isn't dependent on me; it's dependent on the voters and they haven't made up their minds.  They haven't, I haven't met them, I haven't listened to them except in the pockets where I have in the course of the miderms and the off-term elections like in the case of Doug Jones.  I want to be in places where people feel left out and left behind by the political process and system, and by our economy—and by the way they feel that, people feel that in a lot of places.  So I'm going to try to be a candidate with a, with an ambitious agenda but also some humility, because I think, as I said earlier, no one, no one candidate, no one party has a corner on all the best ideas, and as you draw on those ideas to sharpen and refine your own agenda, then I think we have not just a better chance of enacting that agenda but having that agenda last.

Fred?


REPORTER:  ...as you pointed out you have campaigned over the last few years, many years really, across the South for many different candidates.  What are you hearing from African-American voters that may be different or similar to what folks are saying in the rest of the country?

PATRICK:  It's very similar; that's that's the point I was making that it's—.  I remember, Fred, when I was running the first time in in Massachusetts and out in Berkshire County, folks would say, you know, we feel like state government is just about the neighborhood around Beacon Hill.  And then you go to Worcester County, and they'd say the same thing.  And then you'd go to, you know, to the South Coast or down the Cape and they say the same thing, and the same thing up in Merrimack Valley, and the same thing in Roxbury, which is walking distance.  And it struck me that folks didn't know that they had that sense of being left out and left back in common.  And that we could through that, not choose what I think the incumbent president does as an opportunity to divide, but in fact use that as an opportunity for people to see common cause and that same sense of community I was trying to describe earlier and use that as a way to build a coalition not just a win, but to govern.  And I think that is the thing that seems so striking today in America,  That the communities, you know, in rural North Carolina or, or, Illinois, or in Mississippi or Alabama, as you as you mentioned in Texas, are expressing the same sentiments, for the same reasons, and the same anxiety and frustration that I recognize from growing up on the South Side of Chicago.  That's an opportunity for us to come together.

REPORTER:  And what motivates folks to come out and vote across the South, particularly African American voters?

PATRICK:  Well, I think. I think it's, it's a combination of not just having a, an agenda that speaks to their aspirations, but having a candidate who doesn't see them as just a member of a group, sees them as as complex, as complex human beings, and, and understands that and convinces them that their issues are going to be issues just between campaigns, but that the agenda of a winning candidate is something that gets done once in office.

Yeah.


KEVIN BOWE:  Thank you governor.  Kevin Bowe from Public...

PATRICK:  Hey, Kevin, how are you?

KEVIN BOWE:  ...News Service.  As we know you have had a few controversies while you were governor—scandal in the Department of Health, controversy with the Department of Children and Families, but I'd like to focus on an issue that you brought up, and that's opioids.   You were governor for eight years, really, when the opioid epidemic was exploding.

PATRICK:  Mmm.

KEVIN BOWE:  And it was only after Gov. Shumlin, the neighbor in Vermont, really made a major speech, state of the state speech about just how devastating it was, that a lot of focus was attached to it, and only in your last year, did you declare a public health crisis because of it.

PATRICK:  Yeah.

KEVIN BOWE:  But again, it was exploding for eight years under your tutelage.  Do you think you could have done something different, and maybe lessened the impact of the opioid epidemic, not only in Massachusetts, but in New Hampshire?

PATRICK:  Yeah.  God I hope so.  You know, we, I would say that, that you are, you are right about a lot of what you said not all of it.  But I think the whole, the whole business of trying to to assign a date when opioids became an explosive problem is, is hard.  You know I remember visiting. I remember visiting rehabilitation facilities and recovery facilities and and talking with the folks who were working on beating their, beating their addiction.  I remember meeting with a manufacturer, the head of a company, that manufactures a drug that actually you know impairs the appetite or inhibits the appetite for opioids rather than what the sort of customary...

REPORTER:  Suboxone

PATRICK:  Suboxone, thank you.  Rather than the customary strategy which is to, which is to move people to a lower dose of of opiods.  I'm talking about the shot and the injection..

REPORTER:  Vivitrol.

PATRICK:  Yes, right.  Thank you.  And, and how hard it was to introduce that alternative strategy even into the, into the, into the Department of Corrections.  So you were, you were right i think that this was an issue that was happening around us before we bore in; I wouldn't say was true that it was an epidemic for the whole time.  But I will never forget walking the dog one morning early in the morning, one of the few times the state police left me alone; it was just before dawn and there was another woman out in our leafy neighborhood in Milton where we used to live, walking her dog.  And we were walking past each other, and I had seen her around and as a as a neighbor, but I didn't know her.  And, and she stopped me and this was, by the way, Kevin, this is right around the time we were ramping up or amping up.  And she stopped me, and she said, she said, governor, she said, You don't know because people don't know. that we're dealing with this in our own family.  She said I've, my walk with the dog is my one break from caring for my for my adult daughter.  And, and she said thank you for, thank you for focusing on it.  And I appreciate that, but I take your point.  We were ahead on a whole lot of things, and probably not as far ahead as, as frankly, our, our consciousness...

Thank you guys; we'll meet you in Manchester.


Yep… the 2020 Democrat field is expanding… so you know what that means…
 
If you’re reporting on former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s 2020 bid, please consider the following from the RNC:
 
“There’s already one Massachusetts elitist liberal running in the Democrat field, yet Deval Patrick must think she, nor any of the other candidates aren’t good enough. Reminder: Patrick doesn’t stand a chance against President Trump either.” – RNC Spokesman Steve Guest
 
Here’s some of what you need to know about Deval Patrick:



1.        Boston Globe, 1/4/15
2.        Boston Globe, 4/13/15
3.        Boston Globe, 3/6/07
4.        Boston Globe, 1/4/15
5.        The New York Times, 11/13/19