Candidates Line Up for Still-Occupied Seat

In these last hours of furious campaigning, a new political ad on Massachusetts television stations features an uncommon note of whimsy.

“I’m Barney Frank, and I approved this message,” the candidate declares. “I mean, who else would?”

Polls place the 12-term Democratic congressman as the leader in a pack vying for the not-yet-vacant U.S. Senate seat of Democratic presidential aspirant John F. Kerry.

But the competition is intense, with at least three other Democratic congressmen poised to seek the slot should it become available. The well-known female district attorney of Massachusetts’ most populous county also intends to run as a Democrat if Kerry advances to the White House.

Republicans considering the post include a wealthy businessman, Christy Mihos, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., a former Massachusetts state representative.

Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey is also a likely candidate if the job becomes available. Gov. Mitt Romney, while known to have ambitions beyond Massachusetts, says he will serve out his term, which ends in 2006.

The potential Senate opening is as coveted as it is rare. The last time a U.S. Senate seat was vacant in Massachusetts was 1984, when Democrat Paul Tsongas announced that he was suffering from lymphoma and would not seek reelection. Kerry, then lieutenant governor, took that opportunity to move on to Washington.

“These seats come along once in a political generation, and if you have any chance at all, you probably should give it a shot,” said Lou DiNatale, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

And whoever holds the office takes a prominent spot on the national political stage, DiNatale said.

“There is no question that if you are a senator from Massachusetts

Earlier this year, as Kerry was poised to win his party’s presidential nomination, the Democratic-controlled Legislature in Massachusetts passed a bill to prevent the governor from appointing a successor if Kerry left office.

The new law requires a special election to be held within 160 days after a senator declares the seat is being vacated. It also would allow an incumbent to keep a congressional seat if a Senate bid was unsuccessful.

The compressed time frame has created a high-speed race for a job that may or may not be available. Democratic Reps. Edward J. Markey and Martin T. Meehan have raised more than $3 million each to pursue the Senate seat. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, a Democrat from south Boston, has a smaller war chest but a strong base among working-class voters.

All are expected to win easy reelection to their House offices, and all have declared they will run for the Senate “when John Kerry wins” the presidency.

Martha Coakley, also a Democrat, gained prominence as the prosecutor in several high-profile criminal trials, including the 1997 case in which British nanny Louise Woodward was convicted of killing a baby in her care. As district attorney in Middlesex County, Coakley commands a larger potential voter base than any Massachusetts congressman.

“When you go through the analysis, you can make a case for each of them,” said Philip Johnston, chairman of the state Democratic Party.

“Meehan has a couple of good issues, and he has $4 million in the bank,” he said. “Markey is the popular veteran, dean of the congressional delegation. Lynch has his blue-collar base. Coakley would be the only woman. And Barney is Barney.”

As a 24-year member of the House, Frank, 64, is so well known in Massachusetts that strangers greet him by his first name. In an interview, Frank said he believed he could better influence public policy in the Senate than in the House.

“If the Democrats would take back the House, I would not run” for the Senate, he said. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen.”

He also said he would break the long-standing tradition of Democratic senators from Massachusetts running for president. Frank said he could promise that he would not seek the presidency, “because I am gay.”

Frank’s sexuality made him the object of a House ethics investigation in 1990, when a former lover accused Frank of running a prostitution ring out of his Washington apartment. Frank was cleared of the charges.

His sexual orientation “is pretty boring to people here in Massachusetts,” Frank said. “I am who I am, and they think of me as me.”

More important, he said, he would stand out from fellow congressmen as “the only candidate in our race who voted against the war in Iraq and against the Patriot Act.”

Though Frank and other Democrats have begun actively campaigning for the possible Senate seat, state Republican Party Chairman Darrell Crate said he doubted there would be a special election.

“We’re confident there is not going to be a Senate race,” Crate said. If there is, he added, “we have lots of folks out there at all levels of offices who are excited to challenge their Democratic opponents.”

But as a longtime observer of hard-fought battles in Massachusetts, DiNatale predicted: “We’re going to get Kerry, we’re going to get Barney -- and we’re going to get the Red Sox.”