Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who announced his presidential bid last week, reportedly cancelled a planned speech at Morehouse College on Wednesday after learning that only two people were in attendance.
The organizer of the event, New Deal Democrats president and founder Julian Hemmings, told CNN that Patrick was only invited to speak on Tuesday. The two students who were in the audience for the event, which was slated to take place just miles from the Democratic debate site in Atlanta, told CNN that they were asked to attend by organizers who stopped them in the hallway just minutes before the event was scheduled to begin.
"The campaign is telling us that they had to catch a flight," Hemmings told Boston.com in an email. The Patrick campaign did not respond to Boston.com's questions or requests for comment.
"It was an honor and pleasure that he wanted to speak with student journalists and New Deal Democrats," Hemmings added. "We hope that we could do this again."
The governor had similar trouble drawing a crowd earlier this week. The New York Times' Jennifer Medina tweeted a picture of an almost-empty room with the caption "The, er, crowd for [Deval Patrick] tonight."
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