Peter F. Vallone, the New York City Council Speaker and candidate for governor, moved aggressively today to dominate the Democratic State Convention in the hope of forcing his competitors to give up their campaigns or to begin the costly process of petitioning for a place on the September primary ballot.
Swamping delegates and party leaders with evidence of Mr. Vallone's political support, his aides asserted that the Council Speaker, one of five Democrats seeking to challenge Gov. George E. Pataki, the Republican incumbent, this November, had more than the 50 percent he needed to become the official designee of the Democratic Party when the party votes on Wednesday morning as the convention opens.
Mr. Vallone's supporters also asserted -- and Democrats not affiliated with him did not dispute the claim -- that he may have enough delegates to block any Democrat from winning the 25 percent to force Mr. Vallone into a primary in September. If he did, the other candidates would be forced to circulate petitions to get on the ballot, a time-consuming and expensive process.
New York Democratic Party gatherings are notoriously difficult to predict, and Mr. Vallone has tried, without success, to use bluster before to line up support for a challenge to Mr. Pataki that most Democrats still view as a long shot. But as Democrats began arriving at the site of the convention -- the pleasant, sun-speckled Rye Town Hilton in the woods of central Westchester -- there were ample signs of Mr. Vallone's political strengths, much of which was testimony to the fund-raising and organizational advantage he enjoys as the second most powerful elected official in New York City.
Delegates were greeted in the lobby by troops of Vallone supporters, carrying Vallone shopping bags stocked with T-shirts and other small gifts. There was Vallone literature on the bureaus in delegates' rooms here. And this afternoon, in back-to-back private meetings, Democratic leaders, dominated by the heads of downstate county Democratic committees, who are largely sympathetic to Mr. Vallone, informally endorsed a voting procedure that is likely to benefit Mr. Vallone, calling for a single round of balloting on each position.
In Albany, H. Carl McCall, the State Comptroller and highest elected statewide Democrat in New York, signaled that he was leaning toward endorsing Mr. Vallone. And here in Rye Brook, Mr. Vallone, in another display of confidence, was said by supporters to be preparing to ask Clyde Rabideau, the Mayor of Plattsburgh, to run for lieutenant governor with him.
The vote on the gubernatorial nomination will occur on Wednesday morning and is likely to provide the only drama in what is otherwise a replay of a political ritual that has lost the meaning it once had in New York politics. Democrats said that as of tonight, all three candidates seeking the party's nomination to run against Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato -- Geraldine A. Ferraro, Mark Green and Charles E. Schumer -- had enough support to win a place on the Sept. 15 primary ballot.
In addition to Mr. Vallone, the other four candidates running for governor are Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn District Attorney; Richard A. Kahan, the former head of the Urban Development Corporation; Betsy McCaughey Ross, now the Lieutenant Governor, and James L. Larocca, a former state transportation commissioner.
The open claims by Mr. Vallone's supporters of support is unusual in that as a matter of practice, political candidates try to play down expectations on the night before the vote.
Some Democrats said Mr. Vallone's boasts, accompanied by the conspicuous displays of his support, might be intended to stampede delegates into rallying around him as a consensus candidate.
Mr. Vallone theoretically is now at risk of being hurt should he not win more than 50 percent in Wednesday's balloting, which is unlikely though certainly not impossible. Under state convention rules, a candidate who wins more than 50 percent of the delegates is the party's designee. Mr. Vallone, however, could be forced into a primary contest if any candidate either gets 25 percent of the vote, or collects 15,000 signatures from registered Democrats.
Aides to Ms. McCaughey Ross, who apparently does not have the support here to win a place on the primary ballot, said again tonight that she would gather petition signatures to force a primary race with Mr. Vallone. Mr. Vallone, expecting this , has concluded that he would fare best in a one-on-one contest with Ms. McCaughey Ross, which is why he is trying to keep the other three candidates off the ballot, with the assumption that they would not gather petition signatures.
Ms. McCaughey Ross said she was likely to try to derail Mr. Vallone's plans by asking her supporters to give their votes to Mr. Hynes in the hope that this would give him the 25 percent he needs to get on the primary ballot. ''I'll take votes from anybody,'' Mr. Hynes said.
With the Democrats in the midst of some fairly bleak times -- and facing an unusually late primary this year, with little time to adjust for the general election -- party leaders were going to exceptional lengths today to avoid the kind of free-form squabbles that have been the entertaining if politically damaging norm for these conventions.
The party's chairwoman, Judith Hope, shuttled from delegate meeting to delegate reception this afternoon, urging Democrats to avoid answering reporters' questions about procedural differences and instead use every opportunity to criticize Mr. Pataki and Mr. D'Amato.
The decision to try to limit the number of ballots for each position, which could change once it is considered by all the delegates here, was also an attempt to impose order on the convention. ''I feel we need to exercise some unusual discipline here and do our jobs,'' said Ms. Hope, who has at times had difficulty keeping the party leaders loyal.
Under Democratic Party rules, delegates can vote for one candidate in one ballot, and then a separate one in a second ballot, if the convention votes to permit one. The practical effect of that is that there is no limit to the number of candidates who can get the 25 percent needed to be assured a spot on the primary ballot.
Democratic leaders, in a series of private meetings, said they would push the convention to keep it to a single ballot. ''We have a lot of candidates and we need some clarity to this field,'' Ms. Hope said.