Today’s Boston Globe posted an article by Jeff Jacoby on the race in the Fourth Congressional District in Massachusetts. This is the District currently represented by Barney Frank. Representative Frank has been in office since 1980. There are both Republican and Democrat Party primaries in the Fourth Congressional District this year. In the Democrat Primary, Rachel E. Brown is running against Barney Frank. It is interesting that according to WKYC.com:
“Questioned at a town hall last year about the “Nazi policy” of health care reform, Frank told the speaker who made the comment that talking to her was “like talking to a dining room table.”
“Fast forward to this year and the questioner, Rachel Brown, is challenging the 15-term Democrat’s re-election bid.”
I like that. Congratulations to a lady with spunk!
In the Republican primary, Sean Bielat is running against Earl Sholley. Earl Sholley has run unsuccessfully for the State Senate four times. He is in his 60’s. Sean Bielat is the favorite in the primary.
The article in the Boston Globe reports:
“Bielat is a whip-smart 35-year-old Marine, a successful business manager, and a first-time candidate for Congress out to topple the 29-year incumbent whom many consider the face of liberal Washington arrogance.”
Sean Bielat represents the political journey of a lot of people in Massachusetts. The Globe reports:
“…he’s a former Democrat: As a Georgetown undergrad in the mid-1990s, he interned at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington. But his views shifted — slowly at first, during four years of active duty in the Marines (he remains a major in the Marine Corps Reserve), then more decisively at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.”
At the Kennedy School, he began his journey toward conservatism. He found himself debating the accepted ideas at the School and forming his own political philosophy.
The article concludes:
“Issues aside, it would be hard to imagine an incumbent and challenger more dissimilar in style and personality than Frank and Bielat. The incumbent is a political lifer; the challenger believes in political turnover (“two or three terms, then up or out”). The incumbent is notoriously peevish and rude; the challenger is sunny and courteous. The incumbent prides himself on not suffering fools gladly; the challenger knows that he can learn even from people he disagrees with.”
If you are interested in bringing financial sanity to Washington (whether or not that is possible is probably fodder for about twenty more posts!) and ending the reign of Nancy Pelosi, I strongly suggest a vote for Sean Bielat in the Republican Primary and in the General Election. Barney Frank has been in Washington too long and is responsible for too much damage to all Americans by his actions regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If you believe America can recover financially from the current recession, vote for Sean Bielat.