By Bob Benenson and Jessica Benton Cooney CQ Staff
Prospective candidates to succeed Sen. Edward M. Kennedy were loath to talk about the outlook for his seat during his battle more than a year long with brain cancer.
But even as they mourn his passing at the age of 77 would-be successors will have to line up quickly because of the calendar set under state law.
Gov. Deval Patrick must set the date of the general election for not more than 160 days but not less than 145 days after a vacancy occurs according to Michelle Tassinari director and legal counsel to the election division of the Massachusetts secretary of states office.
The primary election will be held six weeks before the general election meaning the identity of Kennedys likely successor will be known in less than four months. Massachusetts is one of the nations most formidable Democratic strongholds so the winner of the Democratic nomination will be virtually assured of solid front-runner status for the general election.
Kennedy suggested in a letter to Patrick and statehouse leaders that they change state law so that his successor could be appointed rather than wait five months for a special election.
Republicans immediately and vigorously objected to that but conceded that their numbers are too small to stop it if majority Democrats want to grant Kennedys request.
State Sen. Scott P. Brown one of three Republicans on the legislatures Joint Committee on Election Laws said he expected Democrats will try to push through a bill after Labor Day.
An Uncertain Field
The best indicator of who might run comes from the last time Massachusetts politicians prepared for the possibility of a Senate opening in 2004 when Democratic Sen. John Kerry was nominated by his party to challenge Republican incumbent George W. Bush for president.
Back then seven of the 10 Democrats then representing Massachusetts in the House were seen as Senate possibilities: Bill Delahunt Barney Frank Stephen F. Lynch Edward J. Markey Martin T. Meehan Richard E. Neal and John F. Tierney .
Since then Frank has become the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a central figure in debates about economic recovery and financial industry regulation.
Markey is seen by some state analysts as having the inside track should he decide to run. With $2.9 million in House campaign cash on hand as of June 30 Markey is the best-funded of the current House members from Massachusetts.
He also has the highest public profile: First elected to the House in a 1976 special election Markey is a member of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee and chairs its Energy and Environment Subcommittee and also is chairman of the Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee created in 2007 after the Democrats took control of the House.
Meehan who no longer serves in the House will now be closely watched.
He resigned from Congress in 2007 to take over as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts campus in his hometown of Lowell but left open a House campaign account in which he stockpiled nearly $5 million money that he legally could transfer to a Senate campaign account should he run.
Frank Talty who teaches political science at the Lowell campus headed by Meehan said recently that Meehan is engaged as ever in running the university" and is showing no signs he has anything other in mind."
A Neal spokesman recently told CQ Politics that Neal is not interested presently in running for a statewide office.
Among the others mentioned back in 2004 Lynch had $1.4 million cash on hand as of June 30 Tierney had $1.3 million and Delahunt had $731000. Tierney and Delahunt both were first elected in 1996 while Lynch first won his seat in a 2001 special election. Also getting some mention this time is Rep. Michael A. Capuano who has $1.2 million sitting in his House campaign account.
How any of those House members would fare in a statewide primary is difficult to predict. Three of them Delahunt Lynch and Capuano ran in 2008 without a GOP challenger. Markey and Tierney had opposition but both exceeded 70 percent of the vote in their districts.
And the primary field could include contenders with experience running statewide such as state Attorney General Martha Coakley.
Slimmer Pickings for GOP
Republicans mentioned in the state as potentially running for the Senate seat include Christopher Egan president and founding member of real estate company Carruth Capital and state Sen. Scott Brown.
Both also have been testing the waters to possible bid in the 2010 Republican primary for governor in a field that also includes Charlie Baker who heads a health care corporation and Christy Mihos a businessman and former member of the state turnpike authority who ran in the 2006 race for governor as a independent and received 7 percent of the vote.
Mitt Romney who served as governor from 2003 to 2007 is the clear star of the Massachusetts Republican Party and the wealthy businessman began his political career with a vigorous though unsuccessful Senate challenge to Kennedy in 1994. But Romney can be virtually ruled out as a candidate for the Senate special election as his political focus has gone national: After losing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 Romney has been traveling the nation laying the groundwork for another possible White House run in 2012.
A Democratic successor to Kennedy through appointment by the Democratic governor would have been automatic if not for a decision made by state Democrats in 2004 that was tailored to the politics of the moment.
Until then the governor had the power to make an appointment to fill a Senate vacancy with the next election for the seat coinciding with the next full round of congressional elections in November of the even-numbered year. But had Kerry won the 2004 presidential election his Senate successor would have been appointed by Republican Romney.
To prevent that from happening the Democratic-dominated legislature passed a bill creating the current special election procedure for filling U.S. Senate vacancies and then enacted it into law by overriding Romneys veto.
One-Party Dominance
The Democratic Party has a six-election presidential winning streak in Massachusetts dating to 1988 with Barack Obama dominating the 2008 contest with 62 percent of the vote.
Democrats have monopolized the states congressional delegation both Senate seats and all 10 House seats since the 1996 elections. Democrats also hold nearly 90 percent of the seats in the Massachusetts legislature.
Democrats also hold the other major office as Patricks election in 2006 as Massachusetts first black governor ended the Republicans unusual 16-year hold on the states top job.
And though a dropoff in Patricks job approval ratings has endangered his hopes for re-election in 2010 even that may insulate the Democrats in their efforts to hold Kennedys Senate seat. The Republicans have a very short bench of potentially strong statewide candidates and the best of them have been eying the governors contest to take on Patrick next year.
Jeff Berry a political science professor at Tufts University in suburban Boston said the widespread assumption is that a Democrat will win handily."
