Deval Patrick, the first Black governor of Massachusetts and a close friend of President Obama’s, said he will not follow his friend’s path and run for president in 2016, ending speculation that the next best opportunity for a Black president could come in the next election.
“I’ve thought about it,” Patrick admitted on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday. “But no, I can’t get ready for 2016,”
Patrick, considered by many pundits as the top Democratic candidate after Hillary Clinton, said his history-making climb to governor was not a prelude to the White House.
“We’ve emerged at leadership nationally and education and healthcare and veteran services, energy efficiency, economic competitiveness, and so on,” he told Todd. “But I didn’t run for the job to get another job.”
Patrick made it clear he supports Obama and believes Democrats, in rebuffing criticism, should point out the administration’s many accomplishments.
He added that it was a mistake for Democrats to shy away from the president during the midterm elections. There has been “explosive growth in corporate profits, in stock market returns, employment that’s come back strong after the worst economic collapse in a generation or two. Universal healthcare, bin Laden’s removal and the end of two wars, and on and on,” Patrick said on the panel show.
“It’s not to say that everything has been solved. . . But we’re certainly better off than we were,” he added.
Patrick also pointed out that Clinton,will need to lean on more than “the narrative that it’s inevitable” for a successful presidential run in 2016.
“I don’t mean that as a criticism of her. I just think that people read inevitability as entitlement,” he told Todd. “The American people want and ought to want their candidates to sweat for the job. . . to actually make a case for why they’re the right person at the right time.”
