Politics & Government

Patrick Says Pollsters Don't Tell Us The Outcome, 'We Decide'

Watch: On NH bus tour, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick makes a last-minute pitch for votes before February's presidential primary.

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CONCORD, NH — Deval Patrick was one of the last candidates to sign up to run in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary. And with less than two weeks to go before Granite Staters voters go to the polls, he's on a bus tour, making his pitch, in small, intimate settings, around the state. At the end of the first day of the tour Thursday, Patrick stopped in Concord to participate in a forum sponsored by the ACLU of New Hampshire concerning civil liberties, privacy, and the presidency — but also answered questions and discussed a broad range of issues with about 40 people who attended the event.

"We've always needed you," he said of the ACLU. "But man, do we need you know."

Patrick talked about his background, growing up in the south side of Chicago, eventually making his way out of poverty via the A Better Chance program, attending Milton Academy, and then, being the first member of his family to attend college. He went onto become a lawyer working in both legal advocacy and corporate world and also in with federal government, during the Clinton Administration, at the Department of Justice. Patrick also served two terms as governor in Massachusetts and now works for Bain Capital.

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"I've had blessing upon blessing," Patrick said.

While peppering his talk with humor, in places, Patrick said he supported many of the issues being championed as part of the ACLU's political agenda including legalization of marijuana, preserving reproductive rights, and allowing voting rights for the incarcerated — while also attempting to straddle differing opinions on some of the issues.

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"What do you think about that issue?," Patrick asked an attendee when discussing voting rights for the incarcerated.

After listening, Patrick said, "(There are) a spectrum of opinions … at least during parole (or) maybe as a part of reentry … it's a big, broader question of which I have a lot of views … on how we have treated those in our criminal justice system."

On a number of occasions, Patrick emphasized the importance of working together, with members of both parties, and bringing people into rooms while governing to find common ground. He noted it was Republican governors, not Democrats, who made changes to mandatory minimum laws, mainly "because of (prison) costs," while his party was worried about being considered "soft on crime." He added, "We, as Democrats, are often the first ones to believe the Republican talking points … we govern by slogan, and (Democrats) do it, too."

For the 2020 presidential race, Patrick said it was less about the "character of the candidate" and more about "the character of the country" and he saw visible anguish about who the nation is, as a people. Patrick said he would support federal legislation dealing with privacy issues such as use of facial recognition software, the elimination of voter registration purging due to inactive voting, ending the death penalty in federal cases, stopping gerrymandering with Congressional districts, and preserving the rights of whistleblowers.

Many of the attendees raised questions outside of civil liberties and privacy including climate change and immigration.

As governor, Patrick said, his administration entered into the regional greenhouse gas initiative, focused on closing coal plants, promoting solar and wind, and reinvesting money in energy efficiency — especially in depressed areas of the state. Massachusetts, he added, also benefited from "the exploding clean tech" sector that helped move the state out of the Great Recession faster than other places. As president, he would re-join the Paris Climate Accord and would work to "raise the standard." He likened climate change to trying to find a cure for polio — at the time, the United States didn't worry about how many people would be stricken with polio; a cure had to be found. With the climate, "It's not whether we are late. It's whether we are too late."

On immigration, Patrick said he was more worried about a potential global catastrophe of climate refugee migration — something the country had to prepare for. He supported a comprehensive fix to the immigration system, a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, "not right away and with conditions, but they should come out of the shadows," and better visa processes, while finding a way to balance the issues of labor; global capital can go anywhere, he added, but it's labor that will be the issue. Patrick called the border wall project "dumb and expensive" and "a racist trope" but said he opposed open borders. Instead, use advanced technology to secure the border, the way the United States protects the northern border.

When asked about the issue of state's rights and how the federal government balanced the changes states were making, Patrick said there were "a whole bunch of things that don't work" at the state level such as gun legislation or how states plan transportation state-by-state.

"How do you do a high-speed rail to the Hudson River?," he asked. "If we are serious about meeting our national needs, we shouldn't be shy about that. Collaboration gets to better solutions. I don't want to be heard as heavy-handed but I'm a little impatient."

Toward the end of the talk, Patrick was asked by a former Cape Cod resident, who worked on his gubernatorial campaign in 2006 but now lived in New Hampshire, how his positions compared to other Democrats who had better chances of winning due to polling position.

"Pardon the flippancy," the man said, "But why are you still running?"

"If the polls were to be trusted," Patrick countered, "We'd have a different president right now. In fact, you remember that 2006 campaign? If the polls were right, I wouldn't have been governor … the first time or the second time. Don't ask me about polls."

Patrick said many of the other candidates were his friends but he hadn't spent a lot of time looking at their positions. They all had ideas but the difference was that he produced results — from having 98.5 percent of Bay Staters accessing health care to criminal justice reform to having the best public schools in the country. If you want "change that lasts, you to bring people in and share the victory," Patrick said.

"Have you made up your mind? Then I'm not late for you. And remember that," he said. "It's not up to pollsters and pundits to tell us what the outcome supposed to be. We decide."

The voter, according to Patrick after the event, said he would be supporting him again — a sign, he said, that his intimate campaign bus tour style was working.

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