About 40 elected officials from around the state met at Governor Deval Patrick's committee headquarters yesterday to support Senator Barack Obama's bid to win Massachusetts in next Tuesday's Democratic primaries.
The state lawmakers, city councilors, and other elected officials were joined via conference call by Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Representatives Michael E. Capuano and William Delahunt.
Patrick sought to dampen expectations about Obama's chances against his chief Democratic rival, Senator Hillary Clinton.
"Nobody is kidding anybody," Patrick said. "This will be an uphill climb for this candidate. This is an insurgent campaign in many respects. . . .
"Unless we make it personal, we will not get it over the goal line," he said. "By that, I mean, tell somebody. Tell your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers. Tell the people who support you why it is you have decided to support this visionary leader."
Reid Cherlin, a spokesman for Obama's campaign in Massachusetts, said he did not know whether the candidate would visit the state before Feb. 5.
But he said that as part of a national ad campaign in the runup to those primaries, the campaign planned to begin running ads today on cable and broadcast television in the Boston and Springfield areas.
Obama's leading rival in the race, Senator Hillary Clinton, visited Springfield Monday.
Mark Daley, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said he did not know whether Hillary or Bill Clinton would return to Massachusetts.
Cherlin said the Obama campaign is relying on about a dozen paid staff, hundreds of volunteers, and the lawmakers gathered to get out the vote in Massachusetts.
After problems with the conference call, Kennedy reiterated his endorsement of Obama, which he made at a large rally Monday in Washington, and called on officials to spread the word about the senator from Illinois.
"I said yesterday that change is in the air, and I think there's change in the air in Massachusetts, as well," he said. "I said I was looking for the candidate who could inspire, and now we've got one in Barack Obama. This is . . . a unique opportunity to elect a president who will inspire an entire nation and meet all the challenges that confront us."
He added: "We didn't get in this campaign to lose."
The officials who joined the governor included state Senators Dianne Wilkerson and Benjamin Downing; Representatives John Rogers, Linda Dorcena Forry, and Jamie Eldridge; and Councilors Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon, and Charles Yancey.
