Each of the first five ballots showed McLaughlin with more votes. The first vote showed less than one percent difference. At each additional ballot McLaughlin gained votes. He reached 53% at the fifth ballot, with Rybak hovering in the mid-40s%.
Then there were, to paraphrase an 8th ward delegate, 'two hours of parliamentary challenges and the ballots for the boards, then a sixth ballot at which McLaughlin had 55%. Rybak and his delegates left, leaving the convention without quorum so there could be no further balloting.'
That's a legitimate exit for a candidate to make and has been done hundreds (or thousands?) of times before. The point is that only when a candidate knows he or she cannot win by the casting of more rounds of ballots, does that candidate pull his/her delegates and shut down the convention.
Rybak, seeing that he would not win endorsement, bet himself that McLaughlin would eventually win, so left to keep McLaughlin from getting endorsed.
By walking out, Rybak is saying he can beat McLaughlin on the hustings. That remains to be seen.
In hindsight, the only way to have avoided this outcome would have been for SSB to not run in the last election. Hindsight is always so much clearer, worse luck.
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