I'm not even sure Uncle Vince wanted to be mayor. I suspect that his friends, such as Lorraine Green and Vernon Hawkins, might have pushed him to run. What I know to be true is that challenging Adrian Fenty was not Gray's idea. A deliberative and conciliatory sort, he was happy as council chairman. Vince Gray had no burning desire to lead the District of Columbia.

As for the bossy Ms. Green, she joined other strong women such as Jerry Mason Hall and Judy Banks to build the Gray government by hiring friends, family members and the now famous Sulaimon Brown, the erstwhile mayoral candidate now at the center of a federal investigation into Gray's own campaign. Did Gray know his personnel aides were stuffing their kin in the government? That his campaign aides were allegedly paying off Brown to badmouth Fenty? A strong man in charge would have known.

In two grafs, Jaffe emasculates Mayor Gray and then insinuates that a mayor who's a "strong man" would keep the women-folk in line. Because only women are corrupt, only the most masculine of men can take care of business.

Okay, got it.

Rhode Island-based GTECH, which ditched longtime partner Leonard Manning in May, has found a bevy of local partners with appeal across the local political spectrum. Long story short, their team has been meticulously constructed to ensure broad support on the D.C. Council, which derailed the last contract award.

From the Fenty axis, you have Darryl Wiggins. A local businessman, he's been a longtime political ally of Fenty's dating back to the his first council campaign. He also was a key member of Hizzoner's transition operation in 2006. He owns Document Managers, a business that's done a lot of business with District government and has experience in managing large tech enterprises, which is what running the lottery involves. (For further Fenty ties, his political guru, Tom Lindenfeld, has been hired by GTECH as a consultant.)

From the Gray axis, you have Lorraine Green. She's the VP in charge of human resources for Amtrak and is a former deputy director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Her close relationship with Gray goes back at least to their shared service under Mayor Sharon Pratt–she as head of personnel, he as head of human services. She's also a former executive director of the D.C. Lottery and Charitable Games Control Board. Good experience there!

Right in the middle is attorney Rod Woodson, a partner at Holland & Knight. One of the best-known lobbyists in local government, Woodson's expert at maintaining relations across political lines—in no small part by spreading campaign donations far and wide. Woodson has deep connections in the legal, real estate, and health care communities.

That leaves big fish Intralot and Scientific Games.

Scientific Games seems not to have submitted a bid, a source says, abandoning Maryland businessman Charles Hopkins; Intralot, which won the initial bid before it was controversially not approved by the D.C. Council, is said to have submitted a bid, but without its controversial local partners, Warren and Alaka Williams.

The Office of the Chief Financial Officer declined to confirm any of this, citing confidentiality laws. Spokesperson David Umansky says that "the expectation is that the recommendation will go the Mayor in the fall."

UPDATE, 3:45 P.M.: Wiggins says he was approached by GTECH about a month ago to pursue a partnership. He says he sees an affinity between his current business and the lottery business: "What we do is management of digital technology in the field. I manage digital technology in the field...It can be a lottery ticket or it can be a deposition."

Wiggins explains that if his bid is successful, his employees will be responsible for maintaining the lottery equipment.

LL asked Wiggins if his mayoral connections played into his participation: "I don't think it plays at all, to be frank with you. We have a great mayor....He doesn't believe in political patronage. All of the time I've worked for the mayor, I've never contacted him about any procurement I've been involved in. I don't expect him to be my business development manager."

UPDATE, 6/29, 12:25 P.M.: Mea culpa: Scientific Games has indeed submitted a bid, their lead local partner, Charles Hopkins, reports.

Hopkins, a Chevy Chase, Md., resident whose business concerns are based in D.C., says he's gathered four other local partners—all D.C. residents—in his group. As for their identities, Hopkins is cagey. All he'll say: "It's a team that covers the lottery/retail side of the equation—which I bring to the table—a leading technologist, and we have people who are deeply involved in the gaming industry as advisers."

UPDATE, 6/29, 3:15 P.M.: LL was able to chat with Green this afternoon, who describes her intentions thusly: "I know what it takes to have an efficiently run lottery, and that's what I'm interested in."

Green declined to address what winning the big might mean for her day job, but she says that she'll "definitely not be involved in a day-to-day full-time capacity."

Green served as executive director of the lottery board from 1989 to 1991, when she started running the city personnel department. This mind you was in the heyday of Pratt's "clean house with a shovel" effort, and few departments required as much cleaning as Gray's human services department. "I spent a lot of time working with him then," she says. "I realized how dedicated and hardworking he is." She went on to co-chair Gray's 2006 campaign for chairman, and in recent years has served on an advisory board to the lottery.

But who will step up?

The big question is: Which local business types will each of the three major global lottery equipment providers tap for a partnership? Tapping locals earns each company points in the procurement process and also helps grease the political skids.

Last month, LL ran down the possibility that Caribbean CAGE, an outfit backed by BET founder Bob Johnson and old D.C. politico Bob Washington, might pursue the potentially lucrative contract with big fish GTECH or Scientific Games.

This week, LL got an unequivocal denial from Todd Washington: "We've taken a look at the opportunity, and we don't think it fits in our sweet spot. We just don't see it being as lucrative an opportunity."

CAGE's main business is in video lottery terminals, slot-machine-like devices; the parameters of the D.C. contract, he explains, don't offer a comparable profit margin. "We don't see how we get the kind of ROI that would interest our principals. We've spent time looking at it and running through the numbers."

But Washington says, "If VLTs come into play, that's a different situation."

So where does that leave Scientific Games and GTECH?

Scientific Games, at this point, is almost certain to partner with Charles Hopkins, a Maryland businessman and former investment banker whose main business to date has been in airport retail. He's likely to have other local partners, but they are thus far unknown.

GTECH, at this point, is a cipher. The Rhode Island-based outfit has dumped longtime partner Leonard Manning, as LL first reported last month. So they're in the hunt for a new dance partner.

LL had heard rumblings about local businessman Pedro Alfonso getting involved; last time appeared as a local partner in a gaming venture it didn't turn out well: He hooked up with Caribbean financier Rob Newell and a shady Las Vegas money man, Shawn Scott, to push a plan to place hundreds of VLTs at a New York Avenue NE slots parlor. That effort ended in disgrace, with the Board of Elections and Ethics handing Alfonso et al. a half-million dollar fine for ballot fraud. In recent weeks, his name has disappeared from chatter. Also said to be in the mix is Lorraine Green, director of the city personnel office during the Sharon Pratt Kelly administration and now VP of human resources for Amtrak. More to the point, she's close friends with D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, who helped derail the original bid. Neither Alfonso or Green returned calls for comment.

Speaking of the original bid, that leaves Intralot, which was initially selected for the contract, along with partner W2Tech. That pick, infamously, was not approved by the D.C. Council, leaving Intralot with a dilemma.

They made noise last year about not participating in a rebid if political concerns caused interference, and proceeded to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the initial award enforced. But the prospect of leaving money on the table—and, more to the point, being politically outmaneuvered by blood rival GTECH—might be too much to bear.

But if they stick with W2Tech—headed by Alaka Williams, wife of politically connected businessman Warren C. Williams Jr.—their political problem remains. In an interview last year, Intralot exec Byron Boothe to LL, “You always take home the person you brought to the dance.”

But the facts are these: If Intralot had bid without a partner last year, they still would have beat the GTECH group—the local preference points wouldn't have made a difference.

Sometimes you take someone to the dance, and sometimes you have to leave alone.