What Was The UFT's Role In Thompson's Concession?

Two conflicting views on whether the UFT pushed Thompson to stay in the race until all the votes were counted or urged him to concede to de Blasio:

Cappell says Mulgrew was "instrumental" in today's announcement. #nyc2013
— Azi Paybarah (@Azi) September 16, 2013

@Azi hmmm. I'm told he was urging Thompson to stay in for days. Skepticism useful here.
— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) September 16, 2013

Publicly, Mulgrew's words seemed contained and circumspect (I'm paraphrasing: "we stand behind the candidate we endorsed...until all the votes are counted...")

I am not as adept a UFT tea leaf reader as Norm Scott, but I took the those words almost at face value.

It seemed to me that after primary night, when both Weingarten and Mulgrew still were speaking forcefully about standing behind Thompson, Weingarten herself and the UFT as an organization got kinda quiet around the race.

Yeah, Thompson had his meeting with supporters at 52 Broadway and yeah, Mulgrew was standing with him at the press conference after Thompson announced his intention of staying in, but again, neither of these circumstances led me to believe that Mulgrew was urging Thompson to stay in.

If anything, the muted public response from the UFT/AFT led me to think they were just wanting Thompson to go away after the primary but didn't want to be seen pushing him out.

Today we get two competing views about the UFT's role in Thompson's decision.

One says the UFT leadership indeed did urge Thompson out.

The other, from Michael Barbaro at the Times, says Mulgrew was urging Thompson to stay in longer.

This matters to teachers, of course, because if Mulgrew was urging Thompson to stick around, even as Thompson is starting to think about getting out, that's the sort of thing a politician might hold against the UFT.

That's the sort of thing that could come back to haunt us later on if and when de Blasio is elected mayor.

So any theories out there on what you think the UFT's role in Thompson's decision was today?

Were they urging him to stay in or were they pushing him out?

And whatever you think they were doing, what do you think was the motivation behind the actions?

One final question - what was Cuomo's role here?

Did he just want to put an end to this standoff so that there's no mess in his political backyard (as one writer, can't remember who now) put it?

Or did he have ulterior motives beyond that?