Reilly advisers say he's eyeing Gabrieli as his running mate

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, seeking to inject more money and energy into his run for governor, is in talks with millionaire businessman Chris Gabrieli to join his ticket as the lieutenant governor candidate in the party's September primary, according to senior campaign advisers.

The advisers said that Reilly is expected to huddle with aides this weekend to decide whether to pick a candidate. Reilly has focused on Gabrieli, who has spent millions of dollars of his own money on two previous runs for office, according to two advisers, who did not want their names to be used.

Campaign aides said the two have talked and that a final decision will be reached in the next few days. ''There is no commitment," one adviser cautioned, as reports of the discussions swirled through Democratic circles yesterday.

Four Democrats are already running for the lieutenant governor post, but none of them are reported to be on Reilly's list of potential candidates. One of the announced candidates, Mayor Tim Murray of Worcester, showed up unannounced at Reilly's State House office yesterday morning to complain to Reilly after reports of the talks reached him, according to advisers to Reilly and Murray.

A Reilly-Gabrieli team would not only have profound impact on the lieutenant governor's race, but would also provide the attorney general with cash he will need to take on the Republican nominee for governor in the fall. The two GOP candidates seeking their party's nomination for governor, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey and businessman Christy Mihos, are both multimillionaires who are expected to spend considerable sums of their own money in the race.

The others that made Reilly's short list were Senate Ways and Means chairwoman Therese Murray of Plymouth, Senator Mark C. Montigny of New Bedford, and Representative Marie St. Fleur of Dorchester.

Yesterday, St. Fleur said that she would not run because she is committed to lieutenant governor candidate Deborah Goldberg. Murray's campaign manager said the senator was backing Reilly, but is running for reelection to the Senate. Montigny, who has $1 million in his campaign account, could not reached for comment.

Corey Welford, Reilly's campaign spokesman, said the campaign would not comment on the reported discussions. Gabrieli did not return a reporter's phone calls yesterday.

Gabrieli, a 45-year-old investment banker, won the Democratic primary race for lieutenant governor in 2002. He pumped at least $3 million of his money into his campaign when he was tapped by Shannon O'Brien to run on her ticket four years ago. He also spent a record $5.3 million in 1998 in a bid to win the Eighth Congressional District seat, but placed a poor sixth in the nine-candidate Democratic primary.

Gabrieli would bring some intellectual gravitas to the Democratic ticket. The chairman of a nonprofit called Massachusetts 2020, he has advocated longer school days to improve education. As a candidate for lieutenant governor, Gabrieli could use his own money to promote Reilly's candidacy and provide the much needed funding that the Democratic winners often lack after a bruising primary.

Gabrieli's entry into the race would deliver a sharp jolt to the Democratic race for governor, where Reilly faces Deval Patrick, a former Clinton administration Justice Department official and businessman.

It also could create furor among the current crop of candidates, none of whom have either the financial resources or the state wide political experience to compete with him. The field already includes Tim Murray; Goldberg, a former Brookline selectwoman whose family founded Stop & Shop; Andrea Silbert of Harwich, the cofounder of a nonprofit training center for entrepreneurs; and a Cohasset psychiatrist, Sam Kelley.

One of Tim Murray's strategists said the candidate was stunned when he heard reports of a Reilly search for a running mate that did not include him.

''Reilly had assured Tim that he would do nothing to hurt him or to discourage him," the Murray strategist said.

US Representative James P. McGovern, the Worcester Democrat who is backing Murray's candidacy and is chairing the Deval Patrick campaign, said a move by Reilly to join with Gabrieli would create political problems for the attorney general among Democrats in Central Massachusetts.

''Tim Murray is one of the most popular people not only in Worcester but Central Massachusetts, and I think some people here would take this as a slap in the face," said McGovern.

The news of Reilly's discussions came as Goldberg made her formal announcement yesterday that she would join the race. She said that she would not be deterred if Reilly chooses to create a ticket that did not include her.

''You ride these rumors all the time," Goldberg said.

''I find it is better that you run your own race . . . and I am in this for the long haul," he added.

The model for Massachusetts candidates joining in a ticket before the primary was first seen in 1990, when then-gubernatorial candidate William F. Weld persuaded his Republican primary rival, Paul Cellucci, then a state senator from Hudson, to join as his lieutenant governor running mate. In 2002, Governor Mitt Romney chose Kerry Healey, the GOP state chairwoman, to join his ticket.

This year, Republicans are also maneuvering over who would get the second spot on the GOP ticket. Healey's aides said yesterday she is expected to choose a running mate in the next few weeks.

The list includes several elected county officials and state Senator Scott P. Brown, a second-term Republican from Wrentham who served six years in the House.

Mihos too appears to be looking for a lieutenant governor running mate.

He met yesterday with former US representative Peter Blute, who was later a radio talk show host.

Blute acknowledged that he is advising Mihos but said that there has been no deal struck for him to join Mihos on a ticket.