Gabrieli readies run for governor

Christopher Gabrieli, saying he is ''strongly leaning" toward a campaign for governor, has hired a team of experienced political operatives and conducted a poll of Democratic convention delegates that suggests he could have a shot at winning a spot on the September primary ballot.

Gabrieli, the party's nominee for lieutenant governor in 2002, said yesterday that he is encouraged by a survey he commissioned. The poll indicates that about a third of the convention delegates elected at caucuses in February are uncommitted to other candidates, Gabrieli said.

If he can secure the signatures of 500 convention delegates, he will need support from 15 percent of the projected 5,300 party activists who will gather in Worcester June 2-3 to qualify for the primary ballot.

The survey of about 2,000 delegates suggests that Deval Patrick has a 3-to-1 lead over Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, according to Gabrieli adviser Joe Ganley. Reilly was slightly above the 15 percent mark, and Patrick was just below the 50 percent needed for the convention endorsement, Ganley said.

But a source close to Reilly said yesterday that a canvass of delegates by the Reilly campaign indicated he has the support of at least a quarter of the delegates.

Gabrieli, who was snubbed by Reilly in the candidate's selection of a running mate seven weeks ago, said that even in assembling the skeleton of a campaign staff he has not already decided to run. He said he is merely putting in place the necessary pieces for a campaign if he decides to jump into the race in the next few weeks.

''It would be foolish to do this impetuously," he said in a telephone interview. ''I don't want to run without being convinced that it's feasible to get on the Democratic ballot and [that I] credibly could be the Democratic nominee."

In recent days, Gabrieli has hired Washington-based consultants Nicholas Baldick, who was national campaign manager of John Edwards's campaign for president in 2004, his business partner, Mo Elleithee, who was communications director last year for Tim Kaine's winning campaign for governor in Virginia, and David Eichenbaum, who was Kaine's media consultant. (Patrick's campaign is expected to announce soon that it has hired another veteran of the Edwards presidential campaign, David Axelrod and his Chicago-based AKP Message & Media.)

Also newly onboard with Gabrieli are Boston-based consultant Matthew O'Neil, a onetime aide to former congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II; Eric Niloff, who has left his job as a speechwriter for Senator John F. Kerry; and Boston native Michael Moschella, formerly of the New Democrat Network, a centrist Democratic think tank and advocacy group based in Washington.

Even before an anemic showing in the caucuses, Reilly's campaign had conceded the convention endorsement to Patrick, the former assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration.

Reilly spokesman Corey Welford refused to discuss the campaign's internal counts and brushed aside questions about Reilly's probable convention strength.

''We're not going to play those games," Welford said. ''We've said we're going to be on the ballot, and we are going to be on the ballot. That's what our opponents are afraid of. We've exceeded the [15 percent] by far."

Most news accounts at the time estimated that Patrick's campaign came out of the town and ward caucuses with about a 2-to-1 lead in committed delegates.

But the Gabrieli survey and the Patrick campaign's own internal tallies suggest a bigger edge.

At a rally at Faneuil Hall earlier this month, for instance, Patrick announced that he led Reilly 9-to-1 in committed delegates chosen at caucuses in Middlesex County, home to a quarter of the state's population and where Reilly served two terms as district attorney before winning the attorney general's post in 1998.

This week, Patrick's campaign manager, John Walsh, produced a spreadsheet to back up the assertion, with the campaign's breakdown of delegates in each of the county's 43 towns and 88 wards in 11 cities. By Walsh's count of a possible 797 delegates chosen at Middlesex caucuses, Patrick led Reilly 608 to 76, with 90 uncommitted and 23 whose preference was unknown.

But Walsh said he could not estimate whether Patrick is already over the 50 percent mark in terms of delegate support or what impact a Gabrieli candidacy would have on the Patrick or Reilly head counts.

''Counting delegates is like holding Jell-O in your hands," Walsh said.

He said that Patrick won more than half the 3,000-plus delegates elected at caucuses, but that he could not handicap the contest for roughly 1,300 ex officio and about 720 add-on delegates.

Ex officio delegates include the 370 members of the Democratic State Committee, ward and town committee chairmen, legislators, and other officials elected to county, state, or congressional offices.

The state committee next month will approve the add-ons. Party spokeswoman Cyndi Roy said they will consist of about 550 minority members, 70 disabled people, and about 100 youth delegates under the age of 36.