The first time I met Deval Patrick, I was covering a local politicians' St. Patrick's Day party for The Daily News Tribune. While I was running around trying to get quotes, Patrick went up to my boyfriend-who was slouched against a wall probably regretting his offer to come with me-and said, "Hey, man, who are you with?"He admitted he just came along to keep me company. "You're with the reporter?" Patrick exclaimed, "Oh, man, that's totally sweet!" He saw me and shouted, "Hey, you should buy this guy a drink!"

I got the opportunity to interview Patrick again when he came to Brandeis Thursday. Before, I liked him. Now, I'm convinced. Just as the United States needed Bill Clinton in the early 90's, Massachusetts needs Deval Patrick. The question is whether the state will warm up to that fact in time for the September primaries.

First, a brief bio for those of you who-like me a month ago-don't really know who he is. Patrick grew up on welfare on the South Side of Chicago. He lived in a tenement home, sharing one bedroom with his mother and sister. When I asked him what he was like back then he smiled sheepishly and admitted, "I did my homework. I was boring."

When he was 13, his seventh grade English teacher told him to apply for the "A Better Chance" program, which puts high-achieving inner-city kids into private schools. Patrick was placed at Milton Academy, a super-swish prep school about a half-hour drive from Brandeis. From there he went to Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was an assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration, and then he worked in the boardrooms of Texaco and Coca-Cola.

His rsum is impressive, but both in person and at the podium, Patrick appears convincingly humble, thoughtful and honest.

The reason Massachusetts needs Patrick is because its politics, like its economy, are stagnating under uninteresting leadership. Many see governor Mitt Romney as an egotistic businessman who spends his time traveling to different states-stealthily campaigning for a presidential race he has no chance of winning, scorning Massachusetts and its weird liberal values. Patrick, however, is thoroughly intelligent-he understands politics, he understands business and, most importantly, he understands people. His passion and energy are contagious-and are exactly what Massachusetts needs right now.

Here's the problem I anticipate for Patrick: As we saw in the last two presidential elections, when it comes to politics in America, complexity is a bad word. So often it seems as though if voters can't pigeonhole candidates into two or three words they understand, they get nervous and choose the safe option.

Patrick's main Democratic rival, Attorney General Tom Reilly, understands this perfectly. His story is simple: He's the son of poor Irish immigrants, and he worked his way up in the world, never forgetting his working-class roots.

Patrick is a bit more complicated. He's a minority candidate, so you'd assume he'd get the minority vote as a given. But with his slick suits and suave manners, he screams Harvard rather than Roxbury. Even though he's a walking rags-to-riches Horatio Alger character, he doesn't look like it. He looks like a black man with two feet firmly planted in America's upper-middle class elite.

"Don't put me in a box, because I won't fit," Patrick told me when I began to suggest this to him. He said he has found that his grassroots campaign-which involves traveling 4,000 miles every month around Massachusetts-has been as successful in Lexington and Cambridge as in poorer, working class towns around Massachusetts. "I want to and will compete in every corner of the state," he said.

I have no doubt that anyone who watches Patrick speak will fall for him-it's just a matter of time. If Patrick can reach enough people before the September primaries, then he has a good chance of shaking off one of American politics' most shameful, embarrassing qualities: its instinctive distrust of an unusual candidate, especially when that candidate isn't white.

It all depends on whether Massachusetts can realize quickly enough what it so desperately needs.