Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick jumped into the already crowded Democratic presidential race Thursday exuding optimism about his long-shot chances of winning the party’s nomination and with a more than a hint of skepticism about the ability of the front-runners to unite the nation or move beyond “nostalgia.”>> Download the FREE WMUR appPatrick ended several days of speculation when he released a video early Thursday morning that concluded with him saying: "I'm placing my faith in the people who feel left out and left back, who just want a shot at a better future not built by somebody better than you, not built for you -- but built with you.".The top question surrounding a Patrick candidacy has been simply, “Why?” With 18 candidates in the race, what does Patrick bring to the field that the others candidates are lacking? What is it about the field that suggests another candidate is necessary?The soft-spoken Patrick answered those questions by tossing some direct, though gentle, criticism at his fellow Bay Stater, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden.Patrick said the current field is “marvelous,” but, he said, “In many ways, it has felt to me watching the race unfold that we’re beginning to break into sort of camps of nostalgia on the one hand and big ideas -- sort of my way or no way -- on the other.“I think we have to be about how we bring people along and how we yield to the possibility that somebody else, or maybe some other party, may have a good idea.”Patrick said he has a close friendship with, and “enormous respect for,” Warren and said he spoke with her on Wednesday night – “and I think it was kind of a hard conversation for both of us, frankly.”“I’m incredibly fond of her,” he said. “She is incredibly smart. She is incredibly thorough on her policy positions and, frankly, she has the best and most disciplined campaign out there, from what I have observed.“But the actual business or advancing an agenda once elected is a different kind of undertaking,” he said. “You have to start that work in the campaign not after the campaign. Not run a different campaign in a primary than you do in a general.”He also credited Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with making Medicare for All government-run health care the subject of a “broad-based discussion.”“But I think if we want solutions that last, they can’t be solutions that feel to the voting public as if they are just Democratic solutions,” Patrick said.He said he is proud that the Democratic field is committed to providing universal health care, and he said that as governor he led the addition of key components to the previously-passed so-called “Romneycare” program by building coalitions among patient care advocates, business leaders and what he called the “faith community.”“I want us to have an ambitious agenda. I want that. That is the goal. “The means for getting there can vary, and I think a little humility about that, a little openness from others about making a place for their ideas and perspectives, is actually how you get to solutions that aren’t just Democratic solutions but also American solutions that last,” Patrick said.Patrick said he is a “big, big fan” of Biden, his long service and his empathetic nature.“But I think the instinct that his campaign seems to have, to in effect project -- if we just get rid, if you will, of the incumbent, we can just go back to doing what we used to do -- misses the moment. "The one truth, in my opinion, that candidate Trump spoke in 2016 was when he said that conventional or establishment politics isn’t working well enough for most people.”Patrick, 63, and his wife, Diane, walked into the Secretary of State’s Office shortly after 11 a.m. and signed a declaration of candidacy to have his name placed on the ballot for the first-in-the-nation primary. He then sat and took questions from reporters for more than 30 minutes before heading to Manchester. There, he visited with patrons at the Bridge Cafe.His team, which had been working quietly for weeks, unveiled a "Deval 2020" logo, Twitter page and other social media tools. Patrick flirted with the possibility of a presidential run a year ago, but announced in December that he would not run, citing the “cruelty” of the campaign trail.“I was ready to go last year,” Patrick told WMUR when asked what changed his mind. “We got really, really close.”He said his wife was diagnosed with uterine cancer shortly before Thanksgiving of 2018, “and it’s the kind of thing that brings you right back to earth.”He said the “right thing to do was to focus on that.” He said she is now cancer-free.“It’s a big and talented field,” Patrick said. “It’s hard to break through, not just because it’s this stage in the election, but it’s hard to break through without being a celebrity or sensational, and I’m neither of those things.”“But I have been worried that we have this amazing moment where the appetite for solutions that meet the big challenges that we have is right there, and I don’t want to see us miss that chance," Patrick said. “I want to offer a kind of leadership which is about both an ambitious agenda and an opportunity through delivering that agenda to actually bring us as a nation back together.”Patrick said he spoke with former President Barack Obama on Wednesday about his plans, but Patrick declined to talk about the private conversation in detail.He did say Obama told him that he was neither encouraging nor discouraging him, but advised him to be “clear-eyed about how heavy the lift is.”Patrick’s top management role at Bain Capital, one of the world’s largest investment firms, has already been the subject of scrutiny – and that is likely to intensify.But Patrick said, “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and some transactions in private equity are going to go sideways, with or without private equity.“But I do think that capitalism – and I am a capitalist – has a lot to answer for," he said. "There are justifiable reasons why people feel like our economy and our government has been tilted too much in the direction of monied interests. Some of those are companies and some of those are individuals. “There is a way out of that.” He said that the issue, and other issues, will be addressed as he rolls out a program that he is calling his “Democracy Agenda.”Patrick also made it clear he’s not adverse to accepting money from super PACs or authorizing a super PAC to support his campaign.“It would be hard for me to see how we would put all the resources together for an effective campaign without a PAC of some kind,” he said.“I wish it weren’t so. I wish the campaigns weren’t as expensive and I wish that the influence of money that we’ve seen in Washington wasn’t as great as it is.”He said money in politics will also be addressed in the issues rollout.As for his chances, Patrick said, “If running for president is like a ‘Hail Mary’ under any circumstances, this is like a ‘Hail Mary’ from two stadiums over.”At the same time, though, he said that most voters are just beginning to tune in and, to them, it’s early.“I’ve lived a political life, and I would ’d say as a black man, a whole life, dealing with skepticism," Patrick said. "I’m used to that and keep doing everything I can with the help and the grace of others to beat those expectations, and I intend to do that this time.”