Hopefully voters won't be as stupid as they were in 2008 and 2012.
Voters didn't know that much about Obama so his team could construct an image for him that many people bought. Patrick left more of a record, so it's going to be harder to build him up into something he isn't.
Plus, first Black president happens only once, and once it happens you can't expect people to get very excited about it. Same thing with Kamala Harris, first (sort of) Black woman president wouldn't be as big a deal as Obama was, or as Clinton would have been.
Roosevelt was popular. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan. But a politician who imitated one of them and hoped to win would be labeled a copy cat pretty quickly and ignored.