We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Distraction....

NEWS: @DevalPatrick told senior Democrats in phone calls today that he's running for president, per two sources. Will start with a video and head to NH to file.https://t.co/1NN6HMYzr3

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) November 13, 2019

There is a common thread running through Mr. Patrick, Mr. Bloomberg, and Mr. Booker:  they are all from the Northeast.  Massachusetts; New York; New Jersey.

No slight on them, but there's a regional reason as well as a political one why Mr. Booker has never gotten any real traction (same reason Chris Christie was never destined to be the "Man of the People" the DC/NY press said he would be).  The political media in DC/NY does not speak for, or even to, the  majority of the country.

GHWBush was an eastern patrician, but he had enough Texas connections (and his political connections were all here) to not be seen as a Yankee.  Bloomberg, according to Maggie Haberman, doesn't even like to campaign (Joe Biden does, but he's really not good at it, as his donors are starting to figure out).  Booker seems like a genuinely nice guy, but he's not really extending his appeal beyond New Jersey (if he even has that much appeal there; I really don't know).  Deval Patrick?  I had to read the full tweet to know why I'd heard of him.  Massachusetts?  To be honest, most of the rest of us in the rest of the lower 48 know Boston more than the state (same with NYC and NY), and mostly what we know is Harvard or Matt Damon/Ben Affleck.  Deval Patrick?  He doesn't have the name recognition of Bloomberg or Booker.  And while nobody has voted yet, Biden is floating out there on name recognition and everybody else is fighting him for it.  Patrick is getting into this fight WAY too late to jump ahead of Sanders or Warren or even Buttigieg (whose name we're all just learning to pronounce; let's be honest).

What does he think?  Biden is wounded by Trump (I don't think so; I just think Biden's a lousy campaigner.  That was going to become clear before the Iowa caucus actually caucuses.)?  Warren is too progressive, Bernie too old (well, yeah, that's a point)?  The Democratic primary voters are clamoring for a middle-of-the-road candidate nobody knows anything about?  Don't we have Buttigieg for that?  Or Klobuchar?  Or Harris?

Politics is weird.

"Deval Patrick? SIGN ME UP!" said no one not named Deval Patrick.

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) November 13, 2019