Endlessly appealing to me. We are in a time i think in this country where the anxiety economically, socially, that you see abroad is something that is very familiar to me having grown up in the southside of chicago, wherewithal the steel mills up and move we saw the steel mills up and both, and all the calamity and disruption that was left in peoples lives. Othery opioids and unhappy things came in and distractive things came in to fill the void. Over policing, the sense that the attention paid to those issues and to us came at a Campaign Time and then disappeared from the agenda in between, those are things folks are feeling and a lot more places than the southside of chicago. We have that in common, in fact. The opportunity to have brought and focused and sustained on those problems and bring all of the perspectives, we know we need from all of it is afferent corners, source a service i want to be able to offer. Lets talk about your entry into the race. It has only been a couple of weeks. Mr. Patrick in fact, we were ready to go about one year ago and changed. Were within one week and a half or two weeks of announcing when my wife was diagnosed with cancer. It made sense to her and to me, that is the kind of thing that brings your feedback to earth, that we would focus on her and on the family. I still think that was the right decision, i think. Years ofated 35 marriage in may, she is cancer and awhich is a blessing relief, and we have continued to look at it and to watch the field. Many of whom are my friends. And i still think there is a and and an opening, frankly, a contribution of skills and experience that i can bring that is unique. I say that humbly. Maybe i will also add that humility is one of the things i think that has to come to bear if you want to actually have solutions that last, because no one candidate, no one party has a corner on all the best ideas. What was it like for you and your wife to go through that process . Mr. Patrick of trying to think on how to run . With cancer. Mr. Patrick we are so fortunate that this was found early. The summer before, she had begun to have some indications that things were wrong, but she is was notough, and she all that worried about it. She finally got checked out by her doctor, which said it is probably nothing, and then as she began to tell me more, i said, why do you not go back in and ask more questions . As she did, one thing led to another, and here came this diagnosis. I dont know if you have ever been close to, for yourself, experienced cancer. The diagnosis itself, the word think has a weight, and i it just knocked the air out of the two of us. I am so, so please it was dealt was dealteased it with mainly by surgery and a little bit of radiation. But those days and weeks of understanding what the path forward was going to be were, its just, you know means am i ready to let go of the treasure. That was one of the times in my life including public life, i have been asked whether this or how involving my wife was, i thought about that politically. She is my life, this is my life. And my first responsibility is to her. I would not step out now if she was not ok. How did the two of you meet . Mr. Patrick we met in los angeles in 1982. Of a firsting out marriage sheage, a talked about publicly, in which she was a survivor of domestic abuse. We were introduced at a hollowing party that was organized so that we would meet. Told to come and meet new people, so forth, i said thats great. I have not lived in the west coast before. Come ind you have to costume, i said i will go, but i will not come in costume. They said you have to come in costume, this is how we do it. I have this caftan from africa, a spear, i had no shoes on, i strode into the party. Only one i was the they invited to come in custom, she was in a black cancer. I was set up. She was in a black pantsuit. I will set up. I was set up. I was the only one there that was armed with a spear. We started a very hesitant courtship, and by the end of that year, i was supposed to move to San Francisco to join a firm had worked in the summer before, and her firm asked her to come to new york and help them open their office in new york. She had grown up in new york, and brooklyn. She wanted to be back and closer to her family. I remember i was studying for the bar in an empty office one weekend at her firm. Said, youn and wouldnt believe what i was just asked to do. I said, what . She said, to help open a firms office in new york. I said, this is a huge honor. They want you to be one of the anchors for this new firm. What did you say . She said no. She gave me all of these patently week arguments for not going weak arguments for not going. I said, what is the real reason . She said, youre going to San Francisco, los angeles is far enough. I think, if you want to go to new york, i will go to new york. And that is what started the conversation, you know what i mean . In a couple of days, we decided i was going to turn down the offer i had except that already at the firm i had accepted already at the firm and follow her jobless to new york. Did go to new york, i got my dream job, believe it or not. Amazing the hand that touches you. We found a marvelous house in brooklyn that was kind of aging for both of us. A dream for both of us. We married and started our family there. A grew up on the southside of chicago. I grew up on the southside of chicago. I lived there with my grandparents, mother, and sister. We spent some of that time on welfare. I think when youre a kid and you are poor, it is not what you focus on, at least not what we focused on. My grandmother would say we are not poor, we are broke, because brooke is temporary. Had a very strong sense of , where i describe it as a time where every child on the block was under the jurisdiction of every adult. If you messed up down the street, your neighbor could go up and then call home. I willhink actually, just take a minute to say that of learningnce, early what community is about, that you have a stake in your and they have struggles as well as iran, has been an essential influence for me and my public life and my professional life and in my personal life. We had terrific teachers in those broken and under resourced overcrowded schools, marvelous i had a marvelous six grade teacher i will not forget. She taught me how to count and say greetings in german. Music,ed the sound of she used it to into those us to the early rise of the nazis, world war ii. She took us to the first opera i had ever seen. Weree a idea what they singing about, i still have no idea what they were singing about, but i love it now but i loved it then and i love it now. Anda kid to be inside it see him or herself as a student of the world and as a citizen of the world, that is a huge thing for anything. She was present when i graduated from college and from law school. At my wedding, she was present when i was sworn in in the Justice Department here, she would have been present when i was inaugurated the first time for governor, but she had passed away by then. Your question was, how did i end up in massachusetts . There was a program, there is a program called the better chance. Boston,time based in there was a search that brought kids the euphemism of the day was nontraditional background and my seventh grade english teacher who sent me any mail just the other day to tell me how proud she was, knew about the program and explained it to my mom and me, and we applied. You have three choices, you could go to the general high school if you stayed in public schools, which is where the junior high was in fact, you could go to one of two technical schools, which taught things like mechanical drawing, and i was really interested in that because i wanted to be an architect, i still want to be an architect. The one on the north side was very wellequipped and had a terrific reputation. In those days, the north side side schools would not take any southside students. Then, there were vocational schools scattered around the city that taught skills i now wish i knew, like auto mechanics, tailoring, and such. Immediatemy family had gone to college. That is a path i was encouraged to think about and believe in. To get this opportunity was pretty extraordinary. I went to an academy just outside of boston. I read that your mother had moved to a parent or grandparents place in kentucky. Is that true . My mothers parents, grandparents i lived with, were from kentucky, from louisville. In fact, we used to go with them once a month, drive down to louisville to visit family when we were small kids, and then my grandmother, i think this is what you are thinking we had this incredible experience, i had this incredible experience if you weres ago a few years ago. Through the any and all sorts of dna and allthrough sorts of research, he plotted my family tree back to the 1600s in the u. S. I learned things ill didnt know. I didnt know. I learned one thing i thought i knew differently. I think that is what you are referring to. My mothers mother was very fair. She could, as we say, pass, and she did. She would go in the south and order the food, then my mother and her brother and my grandfather, she is to say it was usually uncomfortable for the proprietors to send them to eat in the kitchen. At the dining room table rather, at the table. She told us she was the product of a white irish landowner and other woman. Generally, most of us except the history that our forbearers tell us. On that show, i learned, they traced my fathers family back a long way, out to colorado and back. They traced my mothers fathers family back to virginia and maryland. In fact, back to england at the time of shakespeare. Incredible stuff. Couldnt go back further than my grandmother in kentucky. They said, do you know why that is . You know the story have told, that cant be. I said, what do you mean . He explained there are chromosomes that only flow from the father and others that only come from the mother. And that in fact, she was not the product of a white man and a black woman, but a black man and a white woman. She was probably put up for adoption. If you just think about when she was born, that was a very dangerous thing to be. Do you understand . Was thathe presumption she was either adopted or abandoned. You think you know yourself. What about your dad . Was he in the picture when you were growing up . Mr. Patrick not much. My parents split when i was four. I have a very vivid memory of that day, believe it or not. But, i didnt know him very well growing up. He was a jazz musician. He helped found and avantgarde club, which had quite a following. A lotwork a lot toured with them. When they split up, he moved to new york. My mother encouraged us to be in touch with him as much as possible. We would see him when he would come to town for concertgoers. Concert tours. I remember once being taken by her own my first airplane right, first airplane ride we had ever been on. During the time of the new york world fair, he had a gig at the african pavilion. So, we hung out with him for a couple of weeks that summer. We learned dance routines in the shows and got to know the dancers. My sister, who was just about one year older, i think cap closer contact with him and with him. And as she entered adolescence and adulthood, had a closer relationship with him. He and i got to know each other particularly when i started living on the east coast. Collegeone summer in living with him while i was working in new york. That was a pretty tumultuous summer. But, he really came into our lives when diane and i were engaged and living in new york and about to be married. He was enamored of her. Bond. Ad a very strong so i got to know him more grownup than i did as a kid. A lot has been written about your friendship with barack obama. Did he give you any advice before you entered this race . Mr. Patrick yes. You talked to him. Mr. Patrick sure. I knew barack obama before he was in any public office. I knew him when he was practically in civil rights law, and chicago. In chicago. He was white House Counsel at the time when i was working in the clinton administration. I remember he said to me, have you ever met barack obama . He reminds me of you and you remind me of him, you guys should know each other. I heard the same, it is not a name you will commonly here. We had a chance to get together and spend some time together. I liked him from the beginning. I remember he called me, think i was working at cocacola when he called to say he was running for office the first time. For state senate, i think. He said, i am running for us for office, i want your help. I was excited at that time, i said i am all in. I will give it the max. He said, there is no max in illinois. [laughter] , and then you know, his run for the presidency, i helped when i could. It was just the thing to behold, not just for him, but for the nation. Positively uplifting time for all of us. It was joyful, how total strangers were just hugging him shaking hands, the sense that we had taken a historic step. And you know what that administration was like, huge highs and lows. Like any administration. Posed risks ex that had a smelling underbelly, i will say it that way. And hashe was very, been very clear that, very clear about both the wonder and opportunity of being a chief executive of the u. S. , and the sense of sometimes being confined and i remember he said, i just like to take a walk to the bookstore. It was an event. I think on their first visit to marthas vineyard, i remember him saying, he set with the girls at breakfast and said, what would you like to do today . He said, maybe go for a park right a bike ride. By the time they got the outcome of the whole road had been closed down. Out, the whole road had been closed down. That was it. It was just a very that bubble can be pretty confining with the opportunity to do a lot of good for a lot of people. It is pretty powerful, too. We talked about that, how hard campaigning is. He was famous when he started to run, i am not. Clear. , he was very he always has been. What is your path . You look at a crowded field and Barack ObamasVice President , joe biden in the field, senators, representatives, the mayor of indiana, what has developed patricks path . Mr. Patrick some of the longtime friends like Vice President biden and mayor pete, they are really good and talented people. I think i sensed that the electorate, the primary electorate was not settled. I think that has been more than confirmed in the visits i have had since announcing in New Hampshire and california and nevada and iowa and south carolina. I think there is a lot of room for folks who want both in and vicious agenda and a record of anivering against ambitious agenda and a record of delivering an ambitious agenda. That is not about compromising on the ambition of the goal, it is about acknowledging that there may be more than one path to that goal. And that others have contributions to make to strengthen your thinking and your success. Aside and apart from the very important reform agenda that we have been talking about, this Economic Growth agenda has to be a part of our thinking. We have to have an economy that is not so much growing up to the wellconnected as it is out to the middle and the marginalized. I have hadhat and some experiences with that in massachusetts. Kennedy, kerry, mitt romney, all massachusetts politicians. Mr. Patrick dont talk about it like the red sox as if there was some sort of curse. Look, i have no illusions. If i had started years ago, it would be hard. And we have made it harder, i because wemerica, have, all of us, this is not the fault of one party or one sector of the community we keep trying to cram people into the tiniest possible box so that we can flip them to the site or pull them in. You know, if youre spending time with people and he scratched just a little bit under the surface, they start to reveal themselves. There are marvelous ways in which you can find ways to agree , but we move so fast, we trivialize, we feel like we have to turn someone into an enemy in order to successfully different or win the argument, not turn it into evil, because they disagree. And it doesnt serve our longterm interests, i am going to see whether there is still the appetite i think there is, not just within the party, but citizenry. American you dont have to agree on everything be worked before we worked together on anything. How do you describe Deval Patrick . Of patrick that Notion Community that i described earlier, that we have to understand we have a stake in struggles ass well is around, which is the think everyone i learns from our grandparents, we are supposed to do everything we can in our time to make things better for those coming after us. That is what i mean when i say i have never taken a job where i have left my conscience at the door. I have never taken a job where i have to. Whether it was trying to advance the agenda and civil rights, including into some new areas newly behalf of some covered constituencies, if you will, make work in bigractices Companies Like texaco and cocacola or move away from certain products into healthier products. The work we did on a whole host of fronts while in government or the work im doing now. Or i did before jumping into the race. We launched a fund to exempt companies that delivered social and environmental impacts and show that if you take what you value, you are not trading anything in terms of financial return. That whole notion that we have to be about the here and now and tomorrow, our responsibility right now is also to think about and plan for and be stewards of tomorrow. Its not a new behavior or approach. Afraid its a scarce approach in business and government. Tos a model im trying offer. Eight years as governor. Did you have a learning curve as governor . Yes. How would you apply that if elected president . Being readylk about from election day forward. I dont think theres anything quite like being president. Governorsber have meetings with the president once or twice a year. At least once he or. A year. It is off the record. It is just the president and a member or two of his cabinet and all of the governors. I remember at one of them, i cannot member whether it was president bush or president like, ie said something realize im in a room with 50 people who think they can do this job better than me. Sure that sense, some of what president s have to do including making hard decisions with less than perfect information, sometimes having to confront uncomfortable truths is like what its like to be president. Governor, its the notion that you are always leading, whether this is what you think is a leadership moment or not. You are always being watched and evaluated, you understand. The only thing i have ever run for his governor is governor. That first race was my first , my First Successful race was my first race. When you one, what did you think an Election Night