Jilted by Tom Reilly at the proverbial altar, Chris Gabrieli may now be considering setting up his own wedding chapel. (Hey, it’s late – if you can come up with a better metaphor, go for it!)
Anyway, the Herald is reporting that Gabrieli operatives are reaching out to delegates to see if there’s any chance of coming up with the required 15% on the first ballot for the Governor’s race at the convention.
Well, why shouldn’t Gabrieli run for Governor? After all, he’s … uh … rich.
UPDATE: The Globe has more on the possibility of a “draft Gabrieli” movement, which does seem to be real and proceeding with Gabrieli’s blessing. My guess: he sticks with it long enough to make his presence felt, then decides to endorse Deval Patrick as the guy who can bring the kind of “real reform” to the Democrats that Gabrieli thinks is needed. Gabrieli doesn’t want to lose a third election – I bet he’d much rather play kingmaker.
“But supporters of Gabrieli, who spent huge sums of his own money running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor on the 2002 ticket headed by Shannon OâBrien and in a 1998 congressional bid, say the turmoil in the Democratic field has created an opening for him”
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The only turmoil is in the Reilly camp and among Beacon Hill insiders who don’t have that “connection” with Patrick that they think they should have with the man who essentially won the Democratic caucus’
As we head towards to the convention, who would this hurt? The candidate with the outstanding ground game (Patrick), or Team Turmoil?
As it stands now – the word is that Reilly has about 850 delegates (or so he says) and you need approx. 800 delgates to make the 15% – his Boston figures are exagerated like crazy – and a lot of delegates will end up voting in the end how DiMasi and Trav tell them to vote.
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That said – Gabrielli needs 500 delegates already elected to sign a petition to get his name into the nomination at the convention.
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IF he gets those signatures and gets on the nominating ballot……how many votes does he take from Reilly and do they both end up with under the 15% each would need?
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If Deval’s delegates are smart – NONE of them are going to sign to get Gabrielli’s name up there – and I doubt Reilly’s will at this point either…
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Just my opinion…
or vote for anyone except Deval Patrick for Gov.
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What this is saying to me is that Boston and those that like to think they have influence are mighty, mighty, threatened by the prospect of a true grassroots campaign
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Rumors and floating of names such as Gabrielli’s, Lynch’s, and O’Brien’s are “sound and fury signifying nothing”
I have to agree with David. Is Gabrieli really stupid enough to run yet another unsuccessful campaign? I don’t think so. I definitely believe that he may be trying to garner support to possibly get on the ballot in September. But it is very possible he may get his name out there, and then back out and support Deval. Who knows. One thing is for sure, you can’t predict anything in this race.
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By the way, how much does Bill Galvin wish he’d thrown his hat in the ring after everything that’s happened? Anyone hear rumors about him doing what Gabrieli is allegedly doing?
Trav and DiMasi and Menino and other “top” Dems in Boston just realized they do not matter in this race for the convention nod and ultimately the primary win.
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If they succeed on Gabrielli’s behalf in peeling away some supporters Reilly is now claiming as his – then they risk only ending up with splitting maybe 25% of the remainder after Deval picks up some defecters.
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Split them down the middle and that’s 12.5% each side.
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Looks like Bill Clinton could be coming to town this summer instead of this fall 🙂
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I’m not saying these guys don’t matter in the grand scheme of things – but they need Deval more than he needs them at this point of the game. And the sooner they realize it the better. Now when will Solomont and Grossman come to this realization?
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As Deval says – it’s NEVER too LATE to be an early supporter…..
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They can count as well as anyone, but their brain doesn’t want to admit what their eyes are telling them:
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Deval Patrick beat their boy 6 ways to Sunday on Caucus day which makes them pretty irrelevant
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The faster they make nice with Deval Patrick the better
“Deval Patrick beat their boy 6 ways to Sunday on Caucus day which makes them pretty irrelevant”
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I have to learn to write like merbex.
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🙂
There is no limit to the ability of a notoriety seeker with a press advisor and some money to get the “great mentiioner” to surface her name. What happened to the “draft Shannon” groundswell of last week? Will John Silber be the flavor of next week? None of this is serious, just a bit of probing by some insiders of the depth of Deval’s (and Reilly’s) strength at this point. Vanity won’t let the person mentioned say “No way!” But the goal is just to probe if commitment is weak or strong. Right now, Deval’s support is rock solid — strongly motivated, inspired, grass roots Democrats eager for a candidate who can win. They may or may not like Tom Reilly — that is not that relevant. Instead, they know that in the tradition of Roosevelt/Harshbarger/O’Brien, the supposedly safe Beacon Hill Democrat without charisma will likely once again fail against the well-funded “moderate” Republican. So the Deval supporters aren’t going anywhere, no matter whose name gets floated.
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More interesting is what may happen on the Republican side. Mihos has a motivation to run, and the money. Charlie Baker stepped away, but if Healey continues to look potentially weak, you will see a serious “draft Charlie” movement. That is where to look for turmoil. The Lt. Gov has not cemented support in her party, and remains vulnerable. Now if the Globe or Herald will cover that …..
An interesting thought, but the big difference is money. Charlie doesn’t have it; Christy M., Kerry H., and Chris G. all do. That’s why a “draft Shannon” or a “draft Martha” movement was never going to happen, but why “draft Chris” will hang on a bit longer. Unless Healey falls flat on her face in some major way (which could happen, but hasn’t shown any sign of happening yet), she’ll be the unopposed R nominee, and Christy will run as an independent.
I went back to the Chet Curtis/NECN interview Gabrieli gave back on 2/6 in the wake of the Marie St. Fleur fiasco. While the better part of the interview was basically a post mortem of Gabrieli’s short-lived bid for Lt. Governor, Curtis did broach the subject of whether there was room for another contender for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
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I light of Gabrieli’s recent decision, I thought some of his comments were interesting:
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– One of the reasons he chose not to run for Governor (which is something he was thinking about) was that “there were a couple of guys in the field who were doing a good job at that point of putting different points of view forward.” He saw in 2002 “what a debilitating primary does, how it sets up the other party.”
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– Is “concerned for Democrats that this primary might get much more bruising and debilitating; that doesn’t benefit anyone on our side.”
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– Key for taking back the corner office: Need someone who is bold, independent, and not going to be “a creature of the system.”
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– When asked point-blank whether it was too late for another Democrat to join the race: It would be difficult for someone to get in the race at this point; Democrats are really hungry to win and are asking themselves how confident are they that either Reilly or Patrick can “get it done… that’s the “window of opporunity.” A lot depends on whether these guys “show they can step forward and really make a case that they can win, or whether people start to get some wandering eyes.”
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Ok, so my question — based on the above — is what exactly has Chris Gabrieli seen in the last 9 days that has convinced him that throwing his hat in the ring would actually be a good idea?
Gabrieli blurb on ‘BUR this morning.
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It looks to me like there are two things going on here:
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1) Gabrieli’s “opening” presented itself with Tom Reilly’s mismanagement of the St. Fleur affair. I don’t think that Gabrieli is running out of spite, so much as Reilly’s apparent ineptitude really turned off a lot of prospective supporters. (This seems to be the common wisdom, certainly.)
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2) Gabrieli does not see Deval Patrick as a legitimate threat to take back the corner office. The ward chair from Beverly quoted in the interview says that there “wasn’t a whole lot of passion” for either Reilly or Patrick. What’s in the water up there in Beverly? (The message here seems to be that Deval Patrick still has a lot of work to do.)
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Now I’m yet another committed Patrick delegate, but even in trying to be objective I still don’t see how Gabrieli could possibly be a more compelling candidate than Patrick. Gabrieli might be a bright, well-intentioned, well-heeled guy… but so is Patrick. Gabrieli also doesn’t stand out on any of the the issues, and generally seems lacks Patrick’s passion. He comes across as being a bit flat.
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Finally, I don’t see how adding another candidate to the mix — especially post-caucus — jibes with Gabrieli’s stated desire to avoid a disruptive or “debilitating” primary race. Wouldn’t it be better from the standpoint of party stability/cohesiveness to simply let Reilly and Patrick continue to duke it out amongst themselves, and support whoever earns the party nomination?
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Maybe I’m missing something, but this whole thing doesn’t seem to make any sense.
Absolutely right!
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I was floored by Gabrieli’s willingness to subject the party to another internecine primary battle.
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It would be one thing if both candidates were floundering and if he could be seen as a white knight, but neither of these is the case. Patick is running a clean, issues oriented campaign that has generated some real excitement. Gabrieli is not paricularly well known, has lost a state wide office twice, and is entering the race in what appears to be an example of rank opportunism.
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If Gabrieli really wants the Dems to win the corner office, he should withdraw and support the announced candidate of his choice. If he wants to win the corner office for himself, he should have thought about it a year ago.
Did he make an offical statement that he was in? I thought it was just rumor mill right now.
but he’s now on record giving his blessing to the petition drive (or whatever it is) and says he’ll seriously consider it if there’s enough interest. It’s definitely more than just rumor mill.
Sco has a nice synopsis of Gabrieli’s interview with Emily Rooney tonight.
…but the Sco synopsis is very interesting. He’s open to being convinced. But all it will take to convince him is 500 signature. Nevermind that he lost a race for Congress badly, won the primary but lost the general (with Shannon) for LG. Nevermind that he probably has less name recognition than Deval right now. Nevermind that he has no organization (I guess he won’t need it, if all he plans to do is spend millions on tv). I guess all that matters is that the qualifications that he has that make him somehow better than Deval Patrick is that he’s white and he’s got unlimited funds. If they can give him his 500 sigs, he’ll jump in. Or so he suggested.
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Amusingly, for those Reilly supporters who’ve been all about the money, who’ve said you can’t win without millions of dollars, well Gabrielli presumably gives them reason to jump ship fast.
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I have a hard time believing that Deval supporters are going to jump ship at the convention. It should would be an amusing scenario if Deval does pull 75% at the convention, while Reilly and Gabrielli manage to knock each other out. But it seems unlikely just because the party “insiders” won’t let it happen. They’ll figure out who has the momentum and throw their support behind the other guy. They’ll do anything to prevent giving Deval an easy ride, because he doesn’t owe them anything, and they can’t trust he’ll do what they want, once in the corner office.