Is Barney too Frank to fill John Kerry's Massachusetts Senate seat?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/08/barney-frank-john-kerry-massachusetts-senate

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Democrat Barney Frank, former Massachusetts congressman, is itching to get back to Capitol Hill. Frank has emerged as a leading choice to take up a short-term US Senate appointment to replace Secretary of State-in-waiting John Kerry. The seat would be decided in a special election, but until that can be arranged, the governor of Massachusetts is obliged to appoint a senator as temporary replacement.

Saddled with a reapportioned congressional district that removed one of his key urban strongholds, the waspish congressman announced his retirement in 2011. Frank came out more than 30 years ago, the first gay Washington lawmaker to be so bold – his move prompted then speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, another Massachusetts politician, to lament that Frank would never be "the first Jewish speaker". In 2012, he also became the first congressman to marry to his same-sex partner.

Few would quibble that Frank would hit the ground running in the Senate. He was instrumental in crafting the 2008 bank bailout and the Dodd-Frank Act, the 2010 financial regulatory reform package that bears his name. He is popular in Massachusetts Democratic circles and is getting a healthy amount of support from Bay State newspaper editorial boards and opinion leaders. Even newly-minted Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren likes the idea.

With the 113th Congress under way, the interim senator will have to contend with the unfinished fiscal business of a new sequestration deadline and debt ceiling negotiations, along with a passel of cabinet vacancies. Beside the secretaryships of State and Defense, nominations for the top slots at the CIA, the treasury department, and the Environmental Protection Agency will also wind their way through the Senate in the coming months.

And that's where what should have been a smooth ride back to DC for Frank has hit turbulence. Standing between Frank and the Senate seat that he covets is Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska whom President Obama has tapped for the Pentagon.

Despite rumblings from some Republican senators over Hagel's about-face on the Iraq war, his less than full-throated support for Israel, and moderate views on Iran, Obama has plowed ahead with the nomination. Frank, a fiery LGBT advocate, initially joined the anti-Hagel chorus – but over another issue entirely. He slammed Hagel for his 1998 remarks about James Hormel, President Bill Clinton's openly gay pick to serve as ambassador to Luxembourg.

But in a comment ferreted out by Daily Beast columnist Andrew Sullivan, Frank has also said of Hagel:

"I think he'd be very good … You need someone intelligent to help cut [the Pentagon] budget."

If the Susan Rice debacle that put runner-up Kerry into play taught Obama anything, it is that the White House has more than enough Republicans spoiling for a high-profile nomination throwdown without having to deal with off-message Democratic malcontents. The last thing, therefore, that Governor Deval Patrick, a friend and political ally of Obama, wants to do is burden the president with is an independent-minded, temporary senator who might vote against Hagel.

Message received: Frank did some furious backpedalling on Monday, telling the Boston Globe:

"With the attack coming out of the right, I hope he gets confirmed."

Patrick has 145 to 160 days to schedule a special election to fill the remainder of Kerry's term once he moves over to Foggy Bottom. (Unlike Hagel, Kerry is almost certainly assured of a stress-free confirmation.) The interim senator would not have a leg-up in the state contest. As a condition of appointment, Patrick wants a pledge not to run in that race. (After Senator Edward Kennedy's death, former Democratic National Committee chairman Paul Kirk served as the interim lawmaker before Republican Scott Brown won the seat in a special election three years ago.)

The governor appears amused by Frank's power play, especially after the former congressman revealed that he had lobbied Patrick for the position in a "confidential" conversation. But Patrick, who even officiated at Frank's marriage, has declined to commit himself or even float specific names, saying at a Boston press conference Monday:

"I have a lot of great people from inside politics and from other fields as well. We do not lack for really strong and compelling candidates."

A prominent Bay State political operative with close ties to the governor has signaled that there are "better options" than the brilliant, if unpredictable, Frank. Which presumably means "options" who would be largely in the dark about Senate arcana and would do as they're told.

None of the other fantasy picks, including a couple of Patrick's former secretaries of administration and finance, two university presidents, several state public policy experts, and a retired chief justice from the Bay State's highest court, has Frank's depth of experience, which would come in handy during a period that promises to be so vexed as to make Capitol Hill denizens nostalgic for the fiscal cliff negotiations.

"The governor's not going to want to hurt his friend, the president, but at the same time, he's got to think more issues about that will affect Massachusetts," said David Guarino, a Boston-based media and public affairs strategist, who pointed to military base closures and possible sequester cuts that would hit Massachusetts defense contractors like Raytheon. There are few people in Washington who can match wits with Barney Frank – especially on the fiscal issues that will consume lawmakers over the next several months. He would give Senate Republicans fits like no one else.

But Frank could just as easily be a wild card. It all depends on the hand that Deval Patrick and Barack Obama want to play. What seems clear, though, is that the only thing standing between the appointment and Frank is … Frank himself. As Guarino puts it:

"Other than the fact that he's Barney, he has most of what you really need in that role right now."