In an interview on Thursday, Robitaille said Caprio personally asked to meet with him on a "rainy Sunday'' about three weeks ago and they met at a coffee shop in a strip mall near the movie theaters in Seekonk.

He said Caprio was not as direct as his intermediaries, but let him know that he would welcome having him stand by his side as his former primary opponent, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, did after he dropped out of the race, and would "look forward to working with you in the future.''

Robitaille said he told Caprio the same thing he told his "intermediaries'' before and after that coffee shop meeting: that he was "not interested in working a deal'' and "nothing on God's green earth'' would convince him to leave the race.

Robitaille told his story on Thursday, on the day The Journal ran a column confirming Caprio's long-rumored courtship of national Republican support for his campaign for governor.

When asked to confirm or deny Robitaille's statement, Caprio spokesman Nick Hemond said: "Frank Caprio is focused on helping small businesses and holding the line on taxes. We are not going to get into a back and forth over something that has nothing to do with the challenges facing working families in our state.''

The Caprio camp also put out a news release drawing attention to a New York Times forecast that gave Caprio a "61-percent chance'' of winning the race, albeit narrowly -- with 38 percent of the vote, to 34 percent for Chafee, and 25.7 percent for Robitaille - - based on recent polling trends.

But Robitaille put a different spin on Caprio's political predicament, as a longtime Democratic state lawmaker and now treasurer, in an on-air interview with WPRO radio talk-show host Dan Yorke.

"The intensity of the outreach to me personally, by the Caprio campaign, led me to believe, that this is just one more tactic to show that he really is a conservative choice ... when he is not.

"His problem is that he has been a Democrat all his life and he's kind of given up a big hunk of those voters and now he is trying to reinvent himself and it is not selling,'' Robitaille said.

His tale of entreaties by Caprio and his emissaries followed a wave of criticism for Caprio's newly confirmed meeting with officials from the Republican National Committee in February.

The meeting occurred at a time when Caprio was facing questions about whether he'd run as a Democrat, Republican or independent. Caprio is a lifelong Democrat, but he was viewed as more conservative than the other Democrat running for governor at the time, Lynch, who dropped out in July.

Saying the RNC did not initiate the meeting, RNC spokesperson Parish Braden said: "Frank Caprio is a political opportunist and was selling his candidacy to the highest bidder.''

Hemond called Braden's statement "completely false," saying it "makes absolutely no sense," with Caprio's lead in fundraising and the latest Rasmussen poll.

But Chafee campaign manager John "J.R''Pagliarini said: "These revelations go directly to the important issue of a candidate's character. How can anyone, especially members of the Democrat Party, trust Frank Caprio after today? Can you imagine Senator Reed or Lieutenant Governor Roberts or Congressman Kennedy shopping their candidacy to the National Republican Party?

"Perhaps the most important question people should ask themselves is 'which Frank Caprio is going to occupy the governor's office if elected?' " Pagliarini said.

Robitaille himself said: "Unfortunately, this type of behavior has become routine for Frank Caprio. Knowing that 2010 would be a difficult year for Democrats, he shopped his candidacy to state and national Republicans in hopes that they would embrace him with open arms. ...Opportunism has been the mainstay of Frank Caprio's career, and we shouldn't expect anything less in the biggest race of his life,'' he said.

Caprio no longer faces a primary opponent, but Robitaille does. He faces former state Rep. Victor Moffitt in Tuesday's primary.