eddie quad jr. and gene robinson. >> and -- i'll tell you this democratic race, it continues to sort of retract and expand. people dropping out and very choppy, of course. last week michaelpatrick, we now find out he's been contacting not only joe biden, but other democratic leaders talking about the possibility that he might run. there had been word even a year ago that duval was one of barack obama's favorites and they had been encouraging him -- >> i've heard about that in the past. >> but he'd looked at it and just decided it wasn't worth it, but a year later, well, willie, suddenly deval patrick and a lot of other people are thinking this race is wide open, and why not jump in? i know there are other key democrats who were looking at this every day wondering whether it is their time to jump into the race? >> yeah. you've even had hillary clinton and people around her some of them going on tv suggesting she hasn't closed the door any it speaks to and feeds this narrative that the field is weak. you can talk about whether or not that's true and when you've had such prominent people like governor patrick and like michael bloomberg and hillary clinton and others saying