Candidates rally for the homestretch

One candidate courted delegates over eggs and bacon at a Southie diner. Another basked in the glow of a national political celebrity. A third worked the phones from his office and netted a big union endorsement.

The three Democrats running for governor, Christopher Gabrieli, Deval L. Patrick, and Thomas F. Reilly, all used the final, frantic hours before the state party convention to shore up their base.

Today, with many of the last-minute calls made, the candidates' game plans in place, and the buses of activists gassed up and pointed toward Worcester, the show finally begins: Several thousand Democratic delegates descend on the DCU Center downtown for what could be one of the more memorable and suspenseful party conventions in recent years.

The three Democrats each need the convention's blessing to make the September primary ballot. Each spent his final pre-convention day in telling fashion.

Gabrieli, who needs every delegate he can get, was out in Boston before the morning rush hour looking for hands to shake and media coverage. Patrick, who has made much of his grass-roots campaign style, initiated dozens of new volunteers and welcomed friend and supporter Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, for a highly choreographed rally and fund-raiser at the Hynes Convention Center. Reilly, who has mostly left delegate-hunting to big-name supporters, was phoning delegates himself before attending a fund-raiser at Florian Hall in Dorchester for a proposed memorial to firefighters, a core constituency.

The flurry of activity reflected the convention's high stakes: Any candidate who does not get at least 15 percent of the Democratic delegates in tomorrow's vote is finished.

Gabrieli, a former venture capitalist and the party's 2002 lieutenant governor nominee, is arguably in the most danger of that -- he entered the race late, after many delegates were committed to Patrick and Reilly. So he was out at South Station at 7:20 a.m., greeting commuters. ``You're my candidate!" Christine Terrazano , 52, of Watertown, told him as she stopped to shake his hand.

From there, Gabrieli climbed in his campaign's RV and headed to South Boston, planning to greet the breakfast crowd at Mul's Diner on West Broadway. But the crowd had mostly left. Among the stragglers was Michael Kineavy, a top adviser to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, one of Reilly's key lieutenants this weekend. After an awkward handshake, Gabrieli sat at a table by the window and ordered two eggs over easy with bacon.

Gabrieli later walked around East Boston with fast-talking state Representative Anthony Petruccelli of East Boston , two camera crews in tow.

``Chris, say hi to my friend!" Petruccelli said at one point, dragging Gabrieli into a busy intersection to greet someone in a pickup truck stopped at a red light. Gabrieli gamely trotted over. Later in the day, Gabrieli was busy calling undecided delegates and attending a private fund-raiser.

Patrick, a former civil rights enforcer and corporate executive, won big in the party caucuses in February, which means he is all but assured to emerge as the convention's top vote-getter. Like Gabrieli, Patrick spoke yesterday at a conference of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council at the Sheraton Hotel downtown.

Afterward, Patrick told reporters he planned to spend much of the day yesterday welcoming a new crop of interns, working on his convention speech, and taking his shoes to the cobbler. ``They're kind of a mess," he said. ``It's better to get the soles repaired than to keep buying new socks, because I keep walking through the socks."

But Patrick's signature event was last night's rally and fund-raiser with Obama, considered one of the Democratic Party's rising stars. The campaign pulled out all the stops for the event, transforming the third floor of the convention center into a huge pep rally with throngs of volunteers, supporters, and activists waving signs and dancing on the stage to Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Wonder. Organizers said the event drew nearly 3,000 people.

Obama danced his way to the microphone to Wonder's ``Sir Duke," the crowd clapping with the beat and erupting in cheers when he crested the stage. He told his story and connected it to Patrick's: how both were black politicians whom many had written off as having no chance of winning. When Patrick first talked to him about running, Obama said, he told Patrick to forget the naysayers. ``Now, lo and behold, one year later . . . this man who they said could not, in fact, can," he said. After their speeches, red, white, and blue streamers dropped from the ceiling; the two embraced, and then shook hands with exuberant supporters.

For his part, Reilly, the state attorney general who was seen early on as the Democratic front-runner, called delegates himself yesterday. Compared with the other two Democratic candidates for governor, he has dedicated few resources to court delegates -- he didn't even win the caucus in Watertown, his hometown.

In a small conference room at the center of his campaign office, Reilly spoke with five delegate whips from across the state warning them of ``mischief afoot."

Reilly said that delegates were being inundated with phone calls from the Gabrieli campaign suggesting that there would be more than one ballot and they could vote for any candidate on the first ballot. ``Let's be very clear on this, when we're talking to delegates, there's only going to be one ballot," he said. The first ballot, he said, is ``when this deal goes down."

On the other end of the line, the whips appeared confident. Representative David Linsky of Natick, one of Reilly's whips, said, ``You know what it's like, Tom. It's like the old days when you were preparing a case for trial." After the call was over, Reilly gave a quick speech to volunteers: ``Game on!" he said, ``Game on!"

Reilly also picked up the endorsement of the National Association of Government Employees, which claims 22,000 members in Massachusetts.