Gritty politicking, powers of persuasion mattered at end

WORCESTER -- After spending $2.6 million of his own money and a television advertising campaign that saturated the airwaves, the fate of Christopher Gabrieli's campaign came down to gritty personal politics and the clout of a smattering of local officials and state lawmakers.

The venture capitalist, unsuccessful in two previous self-funded campaigns, won by hunting down delegates spread across the convention floor. He was aided by House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, who steered a handful of delegates his way, along with the mayor of Quincy and lawmakers from that city.

With more than 4,500 delegates voting, the candidates and their staffs aimed to keep their supporters in line and prevent them from defecting. Gabrieli, desperate to gain the 15 percent threshold necessary to win a spot on the ballot, tried to convert the few uncommitted and also win delegates from brokers who controlled blocs of delegates and who philosophically wanted him on the ballot. In a scene resembling a wild trading floor on Wall Street during and after the balloting, strategists kept running tallies on the backs of press releases and on computer spread sheets, trading gossip as it became clear that Gabrieli was hanging by a thread.

With delegates scattered across the convention hall, rather than organized in blocs like those loyal to Deval Patrick and Thomas Reilly, ``it made it harder to outreach, harder to manage, to have predictability," said Gabrieli spokesman Dan Cence.

Gabrieli's campaign won the city of Quincy, where Mayor William Phelan and two state representatives endorsed him in recent days. For weeks, Gabrieli chased delegates one at a time. He suffered a setback late in the week when four of five elected officials from South Boston broke for Reilly and only state Representative Brian Wallace supported Gabrieli. Cence said the Gabrieli campaign had held out hope that US Representative Stephen Lynch and state Senator John A. Hart Jr., who backed Reilly late, would support the Beacon Hill businessman.

With ballots still being counted and disputed several hours after they were cast, Gabrieli declared he had cleared the 15 percent threshold to qualify with Patrick and Reilly for the Sept. 19 Democratic primary ballot. Late in the afternoon, the tension outside his operations trailer was palpable as his volunteers waited for news and tight-lipped senior staff offered no details. For all the preparation -- cajoling, nose counting, bulk mailing, and robo calling the delegates -- the convention came down to a couple of hours of controlled chaos. Cellphones rang, laptops clicked, and walkie-talkies squawked in the campaign trailers of the three Democratic candidates for governor.

Floor whips reported news from the floor of the DCU Center back to nearby trailers on the delegate movement. Who's slipping away? Who are we picking up? With the campaigns of Reilly and Gabrieli pushing to get over the 15 percent threshold, every rumor seemed momentous.

Around noon, a young aide approached Bill Duffy, convention manager for Gabrieli , asking if he knew the status of a particular delegate. ``He's fine," Duffy said, and then began to focus on a report coming in through his headset.

Across the room, at Reilly's command center, a report came in that the attorney general was making one last swing through the convention floor to buttonhole wavering delegates in key state Senate districts in Boston. His escort was Mayor Thomas M. Menino, who commanded a bloc of about 200 delegates. State Senator Marian Walsh's late endorsement of Patrick had moved some delegates away from Reilly in a district that includes West Roxbury and most of Menino's home neighborhood, Hyde Park. Senate President Robert E. Travaglini accompanied Reilly's visit to the delegation from his Senate district.

Keeping the troops in line was the order of the day. Menino described how he persuaded state Representative Jeffrey Sanchez, a staunch ally of the mayor from Jamaica Plain, to back Reilly after DiMasi, who has said he personally supports Reilly, asked Sanchez to help Gabrieli qualify for the Sept. 19 primary ballot. ``He was shaky for a while," Menino said of Sanchez, a mayoral aide, before winning a House seat.

``If I helped put Gabrieli on the ballot, that's good," DiMasi said. ``Everybody should be on the ballot because this party is about inclusion."

Outside Patrick's trailer, former lieutenant governor Evelyn Murphy recounted how she spent five minutes trying to dissuade a pair of delegates from Brookline from defecting to Gabrieli to help him reach 15 percent. For Murphy, it was her first Democratic convention since 1990, when she lost a bid for the party's Democratic nomination. Similarly, US Representative Barney Frank of Newton was on the floor late in the morning, making personal appeals on behalf of Patrick.

At one point, one of Patrick's top lieutenants got on the phone to check a report that a state senator thought to be with Patrick had gone over the wall to support Gabrieli. Similarly, a Reilly strategist said previously uncommitted Senator Michael Morrissey of Quincy was a late breaker on the convention morning, moving to Reilly after his city's mayor and two other legislators had jumped to Gabrieli.

At the Gabrieli trailer, Duffy, a veteran of these party scrums, summed up the limits during the final chaotic moments of what even the most tightly organized convention operation could count on. ``At some point, all you can do is land the planes," he said of the intense effort to make sure everyone was accounted for. ``You can't always account for all the cargo."