President Obama’s decision to pluck John Kerry of Massachusetts from the Senate to be his new secretary of state sets the stage for a comeback by departing Senator Scott P. Brown, a Republican, even before he leaves office early next month.
It also may give Victoria Reggie Kennedy the chance for at least temporary membership in the club where her late husband, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, served for almost half a century. It could even give Edward Kennedy Jr., the senator’s son, a chance to follow in his father’s footsteps, if rumors of his interest in serving full time prove true.
And it almost certainly sets off a political brawl among a half-dozen Democrats, many of them current members of the House, for the chance to become one of only 100 senators in Washington and to serve in the majority, as opposed to remaining one of 435 House members and languishing in the minority.
Gov. Deval Patrick is expected to announce very soon a date for a special election to replace Mr. Kerry as well as a pick for a caretaker to serve for a few months until the winner of the special election is sworn in.
Mr. Patrick has been contacted by several people. He met a few weeks ago with Mrs. Kennedy, according to a Democrat with knowledge of the meeting. Mrs. Kennedy was not interested in running for a full term for Senate, this person said, but was “very open to the idea” of serving as a placeholder.
Mr. Patrick also spoke with Michael Dukakis, the former governor and presidential candidate, but he had no interest in either being a caretaker or running for a full term.
If the Democrats cannot agree on a consensus candidate to run in the special election, the aspirants will face off in a primary, which would be held about six weeks before the special election. It could be an unpleasant affair for campaign-weary voters and a boon for local television stations, which would reap the financial rewards of an advertising barrage.
The Republicans would face a primary, too, except that Mr. Brown, who lost his seat last month to Elizabeth Warren, is already the consensus candidate if he wants to run. Besides, there are not many other Republicans in deep blue Massachusetts who are considered plausible contenders, with the exception of William F. Weld, the former governor, who has said he would defer to Mr. Brown.
It has been a foregone conclusion in Massachusetts for some time that Mr. Obama would name Mr. Kerry to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton, who long ago said she would serve only one term as secretary of state.
It has been an equally foregone conclusion that Mr. Brown would run for Mr. Kerry’s seat if it opened up, prompting various polling organizations to start testing Mr. Brown’s strength against possible opponents. In a poll released Thursday, WBUR, the Boston NPR affiliate, found him leading some of the likely Democratic candidates by at least 17 percentage points. It did not test him against Edward Kennedy Jr.
But Mr. Brown has not said explicitly whether he would run; he is expected to make an announcement soon. If he decides to compete, it would be his third statewide race in three years. Some supporters have suggested he might be better off running for governor in 2014, in part because Massachusetts voters seem more comfortable with Republicans if they are not beholden to an ideological agenda in Washington.
Another consideration is that after the last election, some Republican money may have dried up.
“The Republican money guys are dead tired and don’t want another race,” said Rob Gray, a Republican strategist. Donors were drained, he said, by the $78-million Brown-Warren race, the most expensive in the country, and by Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, neither of which yielded much return on the investment.
On the Democratic side, the three most prominent names mentioned are all members of the House and all from Boston or the greater metro area: Edward J. Markey, first elected in 1976; Michael Capuano, elected in 1998; and Stephen Lynch, elected in a special election in 2001. Martin Meehan, a former Congressman and now chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, has said he would not run. Mr. Brown beat them all in the WBUR poll, which may be a function at this point of his high name-recognition.
In addition to Mr. Kennedy, other possibilities include the United States attorney, Carmen Ortiz, and Martha Coakley, the state attorney general who lost badly to Mr. Brown in the 2010 special election but who has rebounded and become one of the most popular politicians in the state.
A special election for the Kerry seat would likely occur in May or June. State law says it must take place between 145 and 160 days after a vacancy occurs. A vacancy is deemed to occur once the departing senator files a letter of resignation, even if the resignation is not effective until a later date.
It is not clear if Mr. Kerry will submit such a letter right away or if he will wait until he is confirmed by the Senate. Even Republicans have said that Mr. Kerry would sail through the confirmation process.
Mr. Patrick has indicated that he wanted to appoint an interim senator, as he did after Senator Kennedy’s death in 2009, rather than someone who wants to run for a full six-year term in 2014 when Mr. Kerry’s term expires.
“I expect to do the same thing I did last time,” Mr. Patrick told reporters recently. “I’m not ruling out other options. But, as a practical matter, it’s hard for me to imagine how you could serve in the Senate for a four-month period and also run a statewide campaign in a four-month period and do both of them well.”
Mr. Patrick has ruled out appointing himself but has said he would not run for a third term, setting up an open race for governor in 2014.
