Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D), who announced on Thursday that he is running for president, says former Vice President Joe Biden’s 2020 White House bid “misses the moment.”
“I think that the instinct that his campaign seems to have…to project in effect, if we just get rid of the incumbent, we can go back to doing what we used to do, misses the moment,” Patrick told reporters after filing paperwork for the New Hampshire primary contest.
Patrick added:
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. Tha’s the same thing Sen. Sanders was saying and it’s the same thing Barack Obama said a decade and a half ago.
Patrick, who served as Massachusetts’s first African-American governor between 2007 and 2015, also issued praise for Biden, saying he is a “big, big fan” of the former vice president.
“I’ve known him for many years,” he said. “I think he is extraordinary public servant, frankly, whose deep, deep personal empathy doesn’t always come through in this campaign.”
Earlier Thursday, Patrick announced his presidential candidacy in a video shared to Twitter. He states in the announcement clip:
This time is about more than removing an unpopular and divisive leader, as important as that is, but about delivering instead for you. This won’t be easy and it shouldn’t be. But I’m placing my faith in the people who feel left out and left back who just want a fair shot at a better future.
Patrick, regarded as a longshot candidate, joins a crowded primary field that includes Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), and others.