Lieutenant Governor Hopefuls Shower Delegates With Pleas

In the past few weeks, Jamie B. Raskin '83 has been invited to almost 20 dinners, cocktail parties and receptions. He has even been offered the opportunity to see Peter, Paul & Mary perform at Hynes Auditorium with comedian Chevy Chase and television celebrity Robin Williams. The offers have been come from a large-town mayor, area lawyers and state legislators.

Raskin is a delegate to the Democratic state convention, which will open in less than two weeks in Springfield.

The more than 3000 delegates gathering at the Civic Center will vote to endorse candidates for all the statewide offices, including senator, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and auditor. Aspirants for all offices have mounted drives to push for delegate support--even Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54, who is facing minor opposition in his bid for re-election, has joined the fray.

But the contenders who are trying the hardest to win delegates' support in a non-binding vote on May 22 are those vying for the lieutenant governorship.

Thomas P. O'Neill III, son of the United States Speaker of the House, had a rather easy time capturing the party nomination for the number two spot in each of the last two elections. But when he announced that this time around he would leave his rather comfortable niche and go for the governorship, eight party members jumped in the race to succeed him.

All have made some sort of contact with each of the delegates who were elected in the February 6 ward caucuses, either by direct by mail or by personal meetings. Raskin has been getting letters daily and going to several small gathering to meet personally with the candidates. One, State Sen. Samuel Rotondi, called on Raskin when he was in Cambridge.

Of the eight contenders, Rotondi lays claim to the best-organized and most intensive effort. "No one in this race has been able to come even close to our campaign," he says bluntly. Rotondi has been campaigning for 30 months and says he has made more than 1700 personal phone calls. By the end of this week, he will have met personally with every delegate.

Leading Candidate

Rotondi is considered at this point the leading candidate for the state's second-in-command executive post, along with Evelyn Murphy, who served as secretary of environmental affairs under former Gov. Michael S. Dukakis . Both seem to be aiming for the liberal delegates pledged to support Dukakis in his attempt to regain the governorship.

Because the governor's race has dominated the pre-convention preparation, the lieutenant governor's race has been left in a somewhat unpredictable situation. Almost all of the delegates have been carved up along the line of the gubernatorial camp, most having been elected as members of slates pledged to Gov. Edward J. King. Dukakis or O'Neill. "The focus will be on the King-Dukakis fight." Lois Pines, a former state representative, notes, explaining that she could not really tell where support on the second spot will fall.

Another result of the gubernatorial clash that has more significantly affected the lieutenant's race is the probable enforcement of the rule requiring that all candidates receive at least 15 percent of the delegate votes at the otherwise non-binding convention to stay in the race.

Rules of the Game

The initial drive to enforce the rule was most obviously aimed at sinking the candidacy of O'Neill, who had attracted no more than 10 percent of the delegates in his camp. But the rule now could hurt as many as three or four lieutenant gubernatorial candidates, many of whom were concentrating on the primary and largely ignoring the convention.

Most of the candidates interviewed last week, even those who may have a hard time reaching the 15-percent minimum, said they would support the rule and just try to make it. But others, such as Chelsea Mayor Joel Pressman, said they intend to battle the requirement. "I had been campaigning under the assumption that the 15 percent rule was not going to be in effect," he complained, are-going that it is unfair at this time to enforce the threshold clause.