THE LEDE

The biggest story in Democratic politics remains simply that Joe Biden is still strong. So much of the analysis of what’s to come in the primary — Warren and Sanders duking it out, Buttigieg or Bloomberg rising — depends on his collapse. Still not happening.

How We Got Pete: Marriage equality was, in some sense, a conservative cause — it was about bringing LGBTQ people into existing social institutions, rather than reimagining them, and one of the great conservative lawyers was the one who took the case to the Supreme Court. Shannon Keating’s perceptive piece from the left about Mayor Pete captures this: The political transformation that made his campaign possible also means that the first major openly gay presidential candidate would be a man of the center.

What the hell is Loblaws? One of my favorite things about covering presidential politics is that it’s simply a window into…everything. Whatever it turns its hot spotlight on. In this case, it was Canadian bread prices, and somehow this was our most popular story when I was in the newsroom yesterday afternoon:

Pete Buttigieg had nothing to do with a decade long scheme to fix the price of bread across Canada, his campaign said in a statement, despite an internet theory that bubbled up after Buttigieg disclosed that he had done consulting work on supermarket pricing for the Canadian chain Loblaws during his time at McKinsey.

TEXTING WITH

Deval Patrick

I texted this week with Deval Patrick, the successful and well-regarded former governor of Massachusetts who left office in 2015. He ran on elements of Barack Obama’s message (and even the same language)…before Obama did. And I think he might well have had the 2016 nomination had he run then. But he’s getting in awful late now, and I began by asking him about that.

BEN SMITH: Governor! Ben Smith from BuzzFeed here. Thanks for doing this and -- can you send me a selfie, and tell me what you’re up to right now? DEVAL PATRICK: Hey Ben. Thanks for having me. I’m on the road from Bishopsville to Hartsville in South Carolina.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Selfie of Deval Patrick. BEN SMITH: Ohh that may be the best one yet.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Forward photo from the third seat of a campaign van showing two rows of people. DEVAL PATRICK: Scary picture but check this out. I’m the candidate but stuck in the third row! BEN SMITH: So a lot of people think it was just too late for you to get in. Have you seen anything to prove them wrong since you announced.

DEVAL PATRICK: I keep asking people, as I have all my political life, not to let the wise guys and gals what the outcome is going to be. It’s up to them, to all of us. People seem to appreciate being reminded of that. Sorry for the slow response - fat thumbs. BEN SMITH: Do you think there’s room for you partly because the other Democrats are too left wing?

DEVAL PATRICK: None of the labels work. I’m a civil rights lawyer who defended the voting rights act and people on death row, and a business litigator. I’m a former executive in companies and 2-term Governor. I’ve delivered on health care, climate change, criminal justice reform, ethics reform, education, and job creation in ways other candidates talk about. I don’t fit in a box. In my experience most people don’t.

BEN SMITH: The box your critics are trying to put you in is this one: IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Headline reading, “Deval Patrick’s Resume Is a One-Stop Shop of Industries Democrats Loathe” BEN SMITH: What’s your response to that?

DEVAL PATRICL: Hadn’t seen it but I usually hear that from folks who see one dimension. There’s a lot of that in politics, and I life.

DEVAL PATRICK: I worked to make the hiring and promotion practices at Texaco and Coca-Cola fair. I helped convince leadership at Texaco to leave the industry coalition “opposing” the science on climate change and at Coca-Cola to focus on healthier options. I started a business at Bain Capital to invest in growing mission driven companies that deliver social or environmental benefit, like one that recycles organic waste that would otherwise end up making methane in landfills or another that delivers dental care to poor kids - because I think we need business examples of how the choice between financial return and social good was a false one all along.

DEVAL PATRICK: I tend to run toward hard problems instead of hiding from them or criticizing them from a distance. I didn’t get everything right; nobody goes. But you better be glad somebody tries. BEN SMITH: You worked on civil rights in the Clinton Administration, and I wonder if you think Donald Trump deserves credit from voters, and Democrats for criminal justice reform in the First Step Act.

DEVAL PATRICK: 98.5 percent of the people of Massachusetts have health care: other people talk, I do. Massachusetts is a part of the regional greenhouse gas initiative, is first in the nation in energy efficiency, has a model resilience and recovery plan, and has a thriving clean tech sector creating tons of jobs: others talk, I do. I can go on! BEN SMITH: (On the subject of doing!) DEVAL PATRICK: Corey Booker deserves credit. And where the President signs a good bill he deserves his share of the credit.

DEVAL PATRICK: But make no mistake: this president does not care about people, so far as I can tell, unless they agree with him and cheer for him. And that’s just not the job. The job is seeing and hearing and trying to help everyone everywhere, whether or not they voted for you. BEN SMITH: Do you agree with Cory that the fact that you’ve got “more billionaires in the race than black people” is a major issue? DEVAL SMITH: Please pardon the misspelling of the Senator’s name earlier. I know better.

DEVAL PATRICK: I know of 2 billionaires in the race. I don’t mind that they are in, I mind that they have an advantage in an election system that is awash in money. The answer is fixing the system. We will be rolling out some ideas on that. BEN SMITH: You’re friends with Elizabeth Warren and her husband Bruce. Has your campaign made that… awkward? DEVAL PATRICK: Yes. Diane and I love and respect them both. We are competitors, not adversaries.

BEN SMITH: So - not awkward. DEVAL PATRICK: Well, we’d been having dinner periodically the 4 of us but nobody has time for that just now! Looking forward to resuming when the time is right. Got to go now, Ben, Sorry. Some students waiting for me outside the car. Be well! BEN SMITH: Thanks Governor!

ON THE TRAIL WITH BUZZFEED NEWS

Here’s Henry with the full list of clients Pete Buttigieg worked with while he was at McKinsey.

Also from Henry, a terrific on-the-ground account of Buttigieg’s relationship with the black community in South Bend, Indiana.

Deval Patrick spoke with Darren and took some not-so-subtle digs at Elizabeth Warren.

This past weekend in Iowa, Nidhi spoke with Cory Booker, who had a scathing critique of how the Democratic party has run the primary process.

Nidhi also was on the bus with Joe Biden, when he offered a forceful defense of how he handles criticism of his son.

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