Patrick says he won't run for White House

Michael M. Grynbaum reports in the Boston Globe on an address by Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval L. Patrick in Washington, DC.

"This is supposed to be -- and will be -- an apolitical gathering," Patrick said at the outset of remarks to members of the American Constitution Society. But his speech repeatedly returned to Massachusetts politics and this fall's gubernatorial race ...

In the interview, he called the American Constitution Society an "important organization. It's a counterweight to a deliberate and purposeful long-term effort by the Federalist Society [a conservative lawyers' group] to impose a very different -- and I think a very limited -- vision of the law."

The American Constitution Society, which counts liberal lawyers, legal scholars, and politicians as members, is a registered non partisan nonprofit. Patrick has donated over $5,000 to the five-year-old organization and once sat on its board of advisers, according to Lisa Brown, executive director.