We follow you. Good morning. Good morning. How are you . All right. We follow you. [laughter] thank you. Good morning everybody. [inaudible conversations] governor, i did not realize they need a photo of you actually signing the eggs. Get a pen. Sharpie . You do not want to lay an egg. Dont break an egg. [laughter] you know they are recording, right . Yeah. [laughter] [indiscernible] that might be uncalled for. Your signature egg,en he gets to the last the handwriting may be an initial . Did you get one . [laughter] heregreat tradition clicking photographs] can we just keep going . [indiscernible] great turnout. On short notice. Longtime admirer. Youre doing a great job. Did everybody get their egg . You . W are this too early though. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. I just want to say that four days notice, this is a sellout crowd. We sold out on friday. We are auctioning off this is amazing, this kind of crowd with a level of interest today here for this great politics eggs breakfast. We do these things because we have great sponsors who are we do these things because we have great sponsors who are here. Their names are around the room to help us put these on. We have been doing quite a few of them, of course, and i want to just mention that comcast, they are always front and center, always willing to help but comcast is going to be in this room in about two hours and they film their newsmaker segment. As soon as this is over, we go right into comcast mode, so other exciting week. Another exciting week. We have a lot of great dignitaries. But i just want to recognize heather, who really got the Harvard Institute of politics off the ground and running, and its a great partner with us. Im so happy you are here today. [applause] [applause] neil we have a great partner, the New Hampshire partner is a great partner with the new England Chamber of commerce. Jim and i basically have breakfast, lunch and dinner together and i want to introduce jim, jim brett, for the purposes of introduction. Thank you. [applause] jim let the record be known that i pay for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. [laughter] forget about it. I also want to acknowledge the presence of a former Lieutenant Governor of massachusetts, tim murray is here. We welcome him in his first visit here. [applause] and i too would like to welcome all of you on behalf of the new England Council here. I want to thank the entire team, for their wonderful Ongoing Partnership with the new England Council. I think with a Record Number of candidates this year, we had a Record Number of politics and eggs programs. I believe today is our 20th politics and eggs. I dont know about you, but the doctor says my cholesterol level is going higher and higher and higher, so its going to come to an end soon but i want to thank st. Anselm for all they do to make these programs such an outstanding must stop to say the least. And, of course, gratitude goes to all the sponsors. They are the ones who make it possible to have the venue and the breakfast here, and they are corporate citizens of New Hampshire and new england. If you know anyone affiliate with any of them you should thank them for this wonderful, Wonderful Public Service they provide here. 2019 has been an incredible year for the new England Council and we have a few more events in store before the years end. I believe we over 70 events here this year and all six single state and in washington with the governors and the congressman and senators, president of president ial candidates and cabinet secretaries. We even had the speaker of the commons speak at the new england british council. We havent taken our foot off the gas pedal. Next week we host congressional roundtable in boston. With congressman bill keating and congresswoman Katherine Clark on the evening of tuesday, december 3. We hope you will join us for our annual Holiday Celebration at the Kennedy Institute for the United States senate. Needless to say its a wonderful, wonderful evening. I promise it will be worth the drive here from New Hampshire. Our final d. C. Event of the year will be held on december 10 in washington where well host congressman Stephen Lynch for a capital conversation. Our guest today is someone who i know needs little or no introduction in this room. But let me take a moment to remind you of his very impressive background. Born and raised in the south side of chicago, he first came to new england to pursue his education. First at Milton Academy and later at Harvard University where he received both his undergraduate and law degrees. Went on to achieve great career success. Both in the Public Sector as an attorney, as president bill clintons justice department, and in the private sector. Holding leadership positions in major corporations like texaco and cocacola. Some have questioned his decision to jump in the president ial race. The word underdog has been used by many a pundit, but let me remind you that exactly what he was in 2005 when you decided to run for governor of the commonwealth, as a political newcomer he defeated wellknown longtime public official in the democratic primary, wellknown Lieutenant Governor in the general election. During his eight years as chief executive he pursued ambitious agenda which included implementing the states first of its Kind Health Care Reform law, investing in Public Education to close the achievement gap of minority students, and setting Ambitious Goals for expanded Renewable Energy in the state. All of this is to say, he is a man who is not afraid of a challenge or an uphill battle. On a personal note i had the opportunity to work with and get to know the governor pretty well during his tenure at the statehouse where he appointed me as chairman of the Governors Commission for the people with intellectual disabilities. Needless to say, i always found him to be kind, very generous, very effective. More importantly, very compassionate. Hes been out on the campaign trail for the past two weeks and today we are pleased to welcome him home to new england and to politics eggs. I know all of you are eager to hear about his vision for the future of our country, and why he thinks hes the best candidate to take on president next year. Please join me in welcoming the former governor of the commonwealth, my dear friend, the honorable deval patrick. [applause] mr. Patrick thank you. Jim, thank you so much for the extraordinarily generous introduction, and to you and the new England Council and two st. As and the institute of politics. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you to ladies and gentlemen, for coming out this morning. Its an honor to be with you. Im delighted that Lieutenant Governor is i guess we are out of state. Lieutenant governor murray, just to be sure, we are all talk about the same person, and many of the friends are here today in the room. You already know my story. Perhaps for those of you who dont, i apologize to those who do. I want to start there because it provides i think important context for why im running for president , and then we can save most of our time for conversation. As jim said, i started out on the south side of chicago. Much of that time on welfare. I lived there with my mother, my sister, my grandparents and other relatives who came and went, at least after our parents split when i was four. In our grandparents twobedroom tenement. My mother, sister and i shared one of those bedrooms in a set of bunkbeds, you go from the top bunk to the bottom bunk to the floor. Every third night on the floor. I went from big, broken, overcrowded, underresourced sometimes violent, Public Schools and still my grandmother would always tell us, you are not poor and were not poor, just broke. Because broke she said is temporary. For all the things we didnt have, one thing we did have was a very strong community. 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 ms. Jones, she would go upside your head like you were hers. And then call home so you got it two times. What those adults were trying to get across was membership in community is understanding the stake you have in your neighbors dreams and struggles as well as your own. The other lesson i learned mainly from old ladies in hats in church was that we were supposed to do what we can in our time to leave things better for those who come behind us. Its the same ancient lesson everyone of us are learned from our grandparents, that each of us bears a responsibility for the next generation. These lessons of community and a generational responsibility have stuck with me. They are the home i keep being called back to. Through college and law school, through my u. N. Work in darfur, sudan, from a civil rights work at the Legal Defense fund or the department of justice, through my assignments in business and my terms as governor. Whether representing haitian tenants in eviction proceedings, defending Voting Rights organizers in alabama making fair andent practices open, expanding health care, to over 90 of our residents in massachusetts hoping to grow a company that delivers dental services to poor kids, i have always worked to leave things better for those that come behind me. Getting results in those settings and in others requires building bridges. Never once have i taken an assignment where i left my conscience at the door. In my experience, confidence in my values alongside an openness to working with others is the formula for change that lasts. Thats why im running for president. We need leadership thats about bringing us together not tearing us apart. We need leadership thats about leaving things better for those who come behind us, not about scoring partisan points. We need leadership that understands that unity makes us not only stronger, but successful. In other words, leadership that is about doing the job, not just having it. I am a democrat and proud of it. Democrats are the party of strivers and strugglers, the folks who look to america to offer a way up and a way forward. We are the party of families who want a home they can afford in a neighborhood thats safe, of students who want to further their education without being enslaved by debt. Of workers who want to earn their way, of seniors who want to age with dignity. Of immigrants who want a lawful path to mainstream american life, of the incarcerated who want a second chance. Of all of us who Want Health Care that we can afford and count on. Thats us. The party of active government when it comes to protecting the planet and civil rights and the party of government restraint when it comes to endless war or a woman making her own Health Decisions or any one of us marrying whomever we love. I believe that the american experiment is deeply invested in aspiration and common cause, in basic fairness that it works where we build community and bear our responsibility to leave things better for those who come behind us. Thats the kind of party that these dark times require. Thats why im a democrat. But i dont think that you have to hate republicans to be a good democrat. I dont think you have to hate conservatives to be a good progressive. Or to hate business to be a good social warrior, anymore than i think you have to hate ward to be a good civil war your or you dont have to grow up poor and stay poor to hate chronic poverty. I try to be the kind of man who rejects false choices not for the sake of tamping down disagreement and smoothing things over, but because of the range of my Life Experience has taught me, so many of the choices that we present each other in politics are in fact false. So i want you to understand that i am proud to be a democrat, but i am not running to be president of the democrats. Im running to be president of the United States. And theres a difference. Im not talking about a moderate agenda, that is the last thing we need in times like these. Im talking about being woke, as my friend says, while leaving room for the still waking. Im talking about what it takes to govern, what it takes to actually make change that lasts. The values of community and generational responsibility are essential for the American Dream to flourish. It was because others here and abroad fought for, prayed for and died for civic ideals of equality, opportunity and fair play that i and so many others, maybe even some of you here, have experienced an improbable journey beyond our circumstances of birth. Grit, determination, resilience, High Expectations and good fortune are fundamental to be sure, but so also are good schools with wellprepared and supportive teachers. So also is food and shelter you can count on. So also is an economy that has a place for you when youre ready to go to work. Most people i meet arent looking for government to solve every problem in everybodys life, just to do its part to help people help themselves. Where theres just no denying that over the years weve seen policies shift away from the values of community and of generational responsibility. The obsession with shortterm quarter to Quarter Results i saw in my business life, has crept into the way we govern, where we govern from election cycle to election cycle and news cycle to news cycle. Weve tilted our economy toward the well connected. Weve come to associate poverty with the unrelated concept of fault. And weve bleached justice slowly, but methodically out of the Justice System. Common cause, let alone common decency, has vanished for much of our National Politics and weve so diminished and belittled government over the years that the publics confidence in it to address common needs keeps shrinking. Leaders who spend every waking moment trying to divide us have made it worse. Caging children and demeaning the weak and vulnerable have made us all ashamed, but the troubling fact is that before the Current Administration, the poor were stuck in poverty and the Great Recession exposed how the middle class are just a paycheck or two away from being poor. The frustration, alienation and even betrayal that folks feel in farm country or in coal country, in small towns across america and many a suburb today is remarkably familiar to me, from my life on the south side of chicago. The American Dream i have lived is up for grabs, but it doesnt have to be this way. There is a way up thats not about tearing people down. There is a way to build together. I know this because thats what we did in massachusetts. We faced the worst economic crisis in a generation, just like all of you. And because we stuck together, and made shared sacrifices in the interest of shared prosperity, we emerged stronger on the other side. After eight years of hard work and focus through those values, massachusetts ranked first in the nation in student achievement, in health care coverage, in veterans services, in Energy Efficiency, in entrepreneurial activity just to name a few. We helped to revive an economy hammered by recession by turning it into a Global Innovation powerhouse creating a 25year employment high. We developed a National Model for addressing climate change, by working with our neighboring states on the Greenhouse Gas initiatives, planning for and investing in resilience and recovery, closing coal fire d power plants and building a solar, wind, and Energy Efficiency sector that both generated ample alternatives and created thousands of jobs. We made meaningful reforms in transportation, criminal justice, the ethics rules, our state Pension System and we did it with responsible budgets and by earning the highest bond rating in state history. Now, we did not get everything right, nobody does. But we got these and other results because we worked hard every day to do all the good we could for all the people we could, in all the ways we could, for as long as we could. We governed for everyone everywhere, not just the people who voted for us, by asking people to turn to each other rather than on each other. If we want Affordable Health care for everyone everywhere, if we want an economy that offers a future for everyone everywhere, if we want a Justice System that is just, an immigration system that works, a tax system that makes sense, we need leadership that builds bridges. A politics that says we have an agree on everything before we Work Together on anything, that offers government by slogan and shortterm wins is exactly the kind of politics that brought us to this point. Substituting our version for theirs is not actually going to deliver change that lasts, if it delivers change at all. In the coming weeks, well be rolling out our policy agenda. Youll hear about a reform agenda that proposes fixes to systems like the tax system