GOP candidates for US Senate scramble ahead of convention

Delegates to next week's state Republican Convention in Lowell have only one contested race to sort out.

Kevin Scott, a former selectman from Wakefield, and Kenneth G. Chase of Belmont, the co-owner of the French and Spanish Saturday School Inc. (and a French-trained chef, according to his website), are vying for the chance to unseat US Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Both men have spent months scrambling to get the 10,000 signatures they need, in addition to the support of 15 percent of convention delegates, to qualify for the ballot.

''The convention is meaningless if you can't get your 10,000 signatures," said Chase, speaking from his cellphone while driving to North Reading to get some more on Thursday afternoon.

Such matters are of little concern to Kennedy. That night, he was in New York promoting his new book, ''America Back on Track," on Comedy Central's ''The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart and CNN's ''Larry King Live." While he was in town, the liberal lion also squeezed in a book party hosted by niece Caroline Kennedy and sisters Jean Kennedy Smith and Patricia Kennedy Lawford.

Meanwhile, at the Market Basket parking lot in Andover, Scott spent Thursday morning asking shoppers to sign his petition for candidacy. ''While he's in New York on a TV show, I'm on the streets of Massachusetts, meeting 1,000 people a day," said Scott, with some satisfaction.

He was dismayed, however, that the single preconvention debate -- which the Massachusetts Federation of Young Republicans had hoped to hold last Thursday -- had to be canceled because his opponent declined to attend.

So were the Young Republicans.

''This would have provided the best media coverage opportunity to date for both Ken and Kevin," the group's president, Karl Burns, said in a statement.

Chase said ''the guys in D.C.," his political consultants in Washington, would not give him the green light. Their strategic plan, Chase explained, requires him to spend all his time at this point collecting signatures and dialing for delegates.

A third would-be primary contestant, Brian Macdonald, a paralegal from Dracut and a member of Mensa, dropped out of the race months ago -- for lack of volunteers, he said.

Though lots of people grumbled privately to him about Kennedy, Macdonald lamented in a phone interview last week, ''if you ask them to do something, that's when they all run for the hills."

Out the door

With her boss spending more and more time on the national scene, Beth Myers, Governor Mitt Romney's chief of staff, is poised to move out of her State House office and over to the payroll of his political operations.

Two highly placed administration sources confirmed that Romney wants to get Myers, an experienced political hand, to work for his political action committee, the Commonwealth PAC.

Myers, who learned her politics in Texas 20 years ago by watching Karl Rove operate in his early days, is expected to be working at the Romney PAC by this summer. She has been a key senior adviser to Romney for the last four years, serving as a stand-in for debate preps in the 2002 campaign and then moving into the State House with him in early 2003.

''Beth Myers remains as chief of staff and will remain at the job for the foreseeable future," said Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's director of communications.

He would not say any more. But in fact, those sources said Fehrnstrom will also be moving there before year's end. Already two other senior staff members have or are about to leave and work for the PAC -- Deputy Chief of Staff Peter Flaherty is expected to leave shortly for Old City Hall, and Ben Godley, who had handled personnel for the governor's office, last week started at the PAC.

The great leap

Chris Gabrieli, the latecomer to the race for governor, has put $1.4 million of his own money into his campaign.

He is on pace to spend $2.4 million on television ads by the time of the Democrats' June 3 endorsing convention, much of it his own money. His ads will appear on television stations across the state, most likely for the next six weeks.

''Chris got into the race late and has to make up some ground," said Joe Ganley, a senior campaign advisor. ''The number of undecided voters is big, and they want to be talked to."

Ganley confirmed the first week of buys cost $400,000 and, although he would not provide details, he said the campaign is ''prepared to spend as much as it takes to get our message out."

By most counts, Gabrieli is in a tough battle to get the necessary 15 percent of the convention delegates to qualify for the Sept. 19 primary ballot.

How badly does Gabrieli want those delegates? When he and his two rivals were asked at a Democratic unity event last week whether they would support efforts to get all three on the ballot, Gabrieli showed an unexpectedly exuberant side.

He thrust his hand in the air as high as it would go, responding to a request by CBS4's Jon Keller for a show of hands in response to his question. Then, Gabrieli began to jump and jump -- all 6 feet 4 inches of him, as rivals Deval Patrick and Thomas F. Reilly stared forward.

It wasn't quite Tom Cruise sofa-surfing on Oprah. But Patrick cracked up and Reilly's frozen grimace dissolved into a chuckle. Soon enough the whole room was laughing.

The week ahead

This week, Democratic candidates for governor gather in Western Massachusetts for what's believed to be their first forum together in that part of the state. The forum is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at Agawam Middle School . . . Romney will be in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, where he will tout the state's new plan for near-universal health coverage at a speech at the Chamber of Commerce. . . . Laura Bush will be in Massachusetts for several events. Tomorrow, she will speak at a preservation event at The Mount, Edith Wharton's former mansion in Lenox. On Tuesday, she will tour the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and address a National Park Service event for youth at the Charlestown Navy Yard.

Globe staff writers Frank Phillips, Scott Helman, and Lisa Wangsness contributed to this report. Have a tip? Lisa Wangsness can be reached at lwangsness@globe.com.