Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts fourth Congressional District has said he will not seek re-election for 2012.Frank, a ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, planned to hold a press conference in Newton, Mass. on Monday afternoon, to formally announce and answer questions on the decision.There will also be a second meeting in Washington on Tuesday.
Barney a powerful member of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation has been an outspoken Representative since the 1980’s. He will be missed.
Who is running for the seat?
UPDATE (by David): As news of Barney Frank’s retirement rockets around the political world, the inevitable collections of Rep. Frank’s greatest YouTube hits have begun to spring up. Here’s a good one from Ezra Klein at WaPo; however, it omits one of my personal favorites, which was when Frank was presiding over the House and the dull-witted Patrick McHenry (who subsequently gained fame in another YouTube setting of relevance to Massachusetts) tried to get a word in edgewise.
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…my guess is that an early front runner would be Setti Warren.
: )
according to reports I’ve seen on Twitter.
be stop-lossed.
Or is there much to worry about there, with Obama and Warren at the top of the ticket?
The new 4th is not quite as strange as the old 4th but still stretches from Newton and Brookline out to Hopkinton and south to a bit of Fall River. Certainly some conservative towns in the middle there, including the home town of a certain former male model…
Pretty sure he is in Frank’s district, umm, i mean the people’s distinct.
Anyone who can hold a beer pong fundraiser and have it played as “cool” in the press must be worth worrying about.
according to Twitter reports, though Joe Battenfeld says he thinks he sees wiggle room.
Who is ‘scary’, Dave?
How about a member of the Brookline School Comm. and former Comm. of Public Health? A Harvard-trained psychiatrist? Appointed by Deval Patrick to the state Board of Early Education & Care? A competent middle-aged woman?
Her name is Dr. Elizabeth Childs – http://childsforcongress.com/about.htm
Dr. Childs is also a Brookline Town Meeting Member, and is indeed a lovely woman.
I don’t expect that she’ll get much in the way of volunteer hours nor votes from her town of Brookline though. Liberal base, active Dem Town Committee, etc.
that Republicans view their own brand as so toxic in Massachusetts that they run screaming from it. One searches Ms. Childs’ website in vain for any indication of which party she is a member of, or intends to caucus with in Congress. I suppose the red background on the site might be a giveaway; that’s as much information as you get.
I can understand the reluctance of MA Republicans to self-identify, but I think it’s poor strategy. Eventually, “the truth will come out,” and Ms. Childs will be revealed as a Republican. At that point, she will not only have to explain where she agrees and disagrees with the radicals who have taken over her party in Washington DC, but she will also have to explain why she seems embarrassed to run as a Republican at all. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to make a conscious effort to reclaim the once-proud mantle of northeastern moderate Republican, rather than hope nobody notices which party you’re affiliated with?
are fond of attacking Democratic candidates if they have any connection to Harvard University, yet when it’s one of their own that they are promoting, a Harvard connection is front and center as an asset.
I meant “scariest” as in “most likely to defeat a Democrat” rather than “likely to do the worst job in office”. Dr. Childs looks like a strong candidate.
Dr. Childs describes herself as “pro-choice and favoring gay rights”, and favors a “state by state solution” to get everyone health care without regard to pre-existing conditions. The problem is that she buys into the GOP line on economic policy — favoring a national balanced budget amendment, for example. She wants to invest in infrastructure, while simultaneously favoring “drowning in a bathtub” fiscal policy.
Namely, if elected for whom will you vote for Speaker?
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and I saw that you recommended her on Red Mass Group and so I am assuming she is active in Republican or Tea Party Circles. Of course she may be an register “unenrolled independent” as a Select woman in non partisan Brook line. I assume somebody will be checking if she voted in any Democratic or Republican primaries for state or federal office, but I thought you would know if she is a Republican or not.
Elizabeth Childs is a registered Republican who has consistently voted Democrat in primaries.
sorry
As David says, she is afraid to mention it on her web site, but she links to the following Herald story on redistricting:
http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1379507&srvc=news&position=4
which mentions her and no other GOP candidate in the 4th. That was before the seat was open, of course.
Hard-core tea baggers and or social issue conservatives would theoretically object to many of her stated positions, so you could imagine her being primaried from the right, but would the “Scott Brown voters” care?
What I wonder is whether another candidate might emerge now that the seat is open. Childs would have an advantage in a primary of _not_ having held elective office above the town level, while still having substantial public policy experience. Brown voters, of course, hate all professional career politicians except for Brown himself.
Cant see her as the nominee from current GOP. Now that it is open, likely to get more established and mainstreaM Mass GOPErs.
as recently as Spring 2010, at least according to my xls spreadsheet of registered voters of Brookline. Small but non-zero chance of an error, as the spreadsheet isn’t “locked”. Her husband is registered as a Republican in the same spreadsheet.
Party registration isn’t listed on local election ballots in Brookline, for Town Meeting nor School Committee. Childs is *not* a member of the Board of Selectman in Brookline, nor has she ever been to my knowledge.
Remember that Bill Keating actually lives in Sharon, which is in Barney Frank’s new district. Would Keating run in the 4th instead of the 9th? That would leave the Cape district open for someone that actually lives there like Therese Murray. Any thoughts?
Keating campaigned hard in 2010 in 9th so may want to stay with towns he won – but who knows. Having New Bedford in 9th helps him there.
My initial list of possibles would include:
Alan Khazei who lives In Brookline and could pivot from Senate quit to this easily and has cash to do it
Setti Warren, although wonder if he needs to rebuild Newton base after his Senate attempt
Newton Rep. Ruth Balser, she ran for Mayor there and could take a look
Retired Judge Nancy Gertner, who rocks in general, lives In Brookline but has never run for office
All these folks I mentioned come from liberal strong holds. The new district includes Needham right. maybe someone from there could give a twirl. Don’t know Dem landscape so well outside of liberal north part of district but wonder on GOP side if Scott Brown successor Richard Ross of Attleborough could make a run. He holds lot of that territory and has won in that area.
Certain the list will grow on both sides. Should be fascinating race.
I
Select(wo)man in Brookline.
She’s quite young (between 30 and 35 if I recall). She’s super solid on labor, environmental, woman’s, education, and civil rights issues. I don’t believe that she’ll have much trouble fund raising either — her professional work with a number of different groups (FairTest, Planned Parenthood, Mass Association for the Blind) has helped her create a network of folks throughout the Commonwealth.
As an added bonus, she’s not a millionaire. In fact, she may well live in the most inexpensive condominium in Brookline… a solid 477 square feet of living space. Solidly in the 99%.
Is it possible to think outside the Newton-Brookline box?
Trouble is, BMG doesn’t seem to have enough participants (not just readers) from farther south in MA-04 who can give us the local details of their neck of the woods.
…would be state Senator Marc Pacheco. He’s not afraid to be a Democrat or to stand up against dumb ideas from either party, and not afraid to stand up for working families. Easily my first choice over some suburban also-ran from not-quite-Boston.
That said, I could live with Setti Warren. Or even Bill Keating.
Nobody else mentioned here interests me in the slightest.
Then I guess he just sincerely isn’t a Democrat. Thanks for clearing that up.
But take a look at his voting record: http://www.issues2000.org/MA-Senate/Marc_Pacheco.htm
Guy Glodis got 19/22 to Pacheco’s 20/22. Not a litmus test. Constituent services are very important and I have been told by people in the district that those who are not with him, do not get heard.
Just in case there’s any confusion about that. Some of those votes are more important than others, and I think his homophobia should disqualify him from any claim that he’s “not afraid to be a Democrat.”
Well, nice to know that people not in the money burbs are being listened to.
I know Pacheco’s record; he’s my Senator. Digging up a seven-year old vote on some random website is fun, but how did he vote on any of the amendments on gay marriage? For equality. As for people not with him not getting heard, I have no idea who these anonymous hypotheticals are. He’s been receptive to me and every Democrat I know in the area. His constituency services have been excellent in my every experience.
I’m resigned to getting some nobody from the moneyburbs who can appeal to State Street, but I was willing to answer a question for the heck of it.
The fact that he’s capable of doing the right thing once he knows it’s popular doesn’t really mean a whole lot. Everyone can do the right thing when it’s easy. It’s what they do when doing the right thing is hard that matters, and Pacheco chose to side with bigots.
This has nothing to do with class, so please quit trying to spin it that way. This has to do with being a progressive or not, and Pacheco’s not.
I’m trying to make it about some Boston-centric people realizing what excites them won’t work everywhere in the state. What works in the rich liberal towns won’t work in the are that just went from (D) to (R) in a recent special.
This is a purple district. Parachuting in somebody that isn’t going to get elected here is a great way to follow up on the Brown disaster, especially if the reasoning for it is based on a vote from several years ago while creating a desired context for it.
Your scenario would have to have Martha Coakley as the candidate in order to follow up on the Brown disaster.
Do you really think people in this district liked Brown’s positions over Coakley’s? No. They preferred his regular guy shtick — transparent to non-casual voters — over the “I wouldn’t be caught dead eating chicken nuggets” vibe from Coakley. Biden and Obama have publicly identical positions, but why send Biden out to PA and OH? Because he and Pacheco, unlike Coakley and the Brookline intelligentsia, attract the trust of low-information, middle-class voters who usually but not always vote Democrat.
Or, you know, we could just decide that a SE Mass district means that we should be represented (again!) by somebody on the edge of Boston.
And you’re doing it again, going on about “rich liberal towns”. This is not a purple district.
Even taking out heavily Democratic Fall River, since only part is included in the new district and I don’t know which, Obama got 61% of the two-party vote share here to 39% McCain. That 22 point difference is 15 points better than the national average. A progressive would be a better fit for this district than Pacheco.
I don’t know what your problem is with Pacheco. Seems personal — you threw rumors and guesses about “people say” this and that. Maybe the vote you dug up from some website will stick, don’t know. Maybe Scott Brown was a freak exception, and everything will be fine if we keep pretending it didn’t happen.
Only one of the most important values questions the legislature has faced in the last decade.
I didn’t throw out any rumors. I just pointed out that he’s a lot more conservative than you acknowledge, and this is a safe D district under most circumstances.
Scott Brown was a freak occurrence. Republicans did freakishly well all over the country last year.
Besides which there’s no evidence working class voters actually like Pacheco enough to compensate for his conservatism. Your argument is entirely speculative.
n/t
conoryunits Darkhorse prediction for #Ma04 – #Scott Brown gives up Senate seat and run in safer Congressional district. #mapoli
After Elizabeth Warren whups him. I can’t see him taking the voluntary demotion though. It would look incredibly weak.
Joe III, or Matt, please move into the district and run!
That means that the ranking Democrat on the House financial services committee will be Maxine Waters, which will not help the effort to demonstrate that it is only the Republicans who are crazy people.
video at the Town Hall Mtg.. This needs to be included in the best of Barney Frank!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/29/1040679/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Morning-Digest:-After-Barney-Franks-retirement,-what-comes-next?detail=hide&via=blog_1
I don’t suppose he’ll run (he’s mentioned), but he would be great.
Ran for treasurer in ’02; we’d have been better of if he’d won.