The race to succeed retiring Congressman Barney Frank in Massachusetts’ 4th District has become a battle with no clear outcome prediction.
Voters in the 4th district are choosing between two men in their 30s with Ivy League educations and different professional paths. Republican Sean Bielat served in the Marine Corps, got an MBA and worked in management. Now he runs a website. Democrat Joe Kennedy went into the Peace Corps, then law school, then on to become an assistant district attorney. Neither candidate has ever held public office.
“What I think voters are treated to are two candidates who have very different perspectives on public policy making, on the role of the federal government," says Peter Ubertaccio, director of the Martin Institute for Law and Society at Stonehill College. “Both I think are doing a very good job at presenting those choices and they are rarely the caricatures that activists on either side would like to portray them as.”
Bielat supports the congressional Republicans' budget plan. Kennedy does not. Kennedy supports most of the health care reform act, while Bielat says he'd vote to repeal it. But in a recent debate, both candidates said they were in favor of a South Coast rail system.
Kennedy, who lives in Brookline, says his platform is simple: equal opportunity.
“Our focus has been and is going to continue to be on the issues. On the economy, how to grow it, the debt and deficit, how to get it under control, women’s rights, health care, access to opportunity. And I think that’s really what this election’s all about and what it’s going to continue to be about, for me at least,” Kennedy says.
And Bielat, who lives in Norfolk, says his priority is jobs: “Jobs and the economy is the number one. Anybody who’s not talking about that is just not listening to where voters are at. That’s what you hear throughout this district. In the southern part of the district, unemployment’s at almost 12 percent, in Fall River, then you come out to Brookline and Newton and obviously unemployment is less of a problem but people are concerned about their businesses, [they're] concerned about their families. Number two is longer-term fiscal responsibility. Once we get out of this slump that we’re in, how do we start working on the deficit and the debt in serious, sustainable ways?”
How are those messages resonating among voters? “I believe that the House in Massachusetts needs to have more than one-party representation,” says Marty Kalikow, a Brookline resident and Bielat supporter. “I agree with Sean on the issues of changes in Social Security, I believe in his experience as a businessman, I supported him when he ran 2 years ago, was very impressed with the way he as a political novice came on and challenged Barney Frank.”
Kennedy also has vocal supporters. At a recent campaign event in Wellesley, Julie Pike of Raynham was volunteering because she says she thinks Kennedy will fight for seniors and the middle class.
“I think that he comes from people that give. You know? All of his family, even though they have multimillion dollars, they just don’t forget the poor person, they don’t forget the handicapped people. And I’m both. So I think he’ll take care of us older guys,” Pike says.
That’s just the kind of statement Bielat would disagree with. He’s criticized Kennedy for riding on his family coattails, yet he recently released an ad comparing himself to JFK.
Joe Kennedy called the ad “bizarre” and says he’s committed to public service, regardless of his family history. Both candidates claim to have the best background to represent the 4th District, which was redrawn last year. It’s shaped like a triangle, based along Buzzard’s Bay and pointing and stretching north all the way to Brookline. Towns along the Rhode Island border such as Wrentham, Plainville and Attleboro were added. They’re small but usually vote Republican. That could change the outcome, according to Ubertaccio.
“I love this district because it really is an excellent mixture of old, industrial factory towns, suburban Boston towns. There’s a really interesting mix here. When you look at places like Fall River and Taunton and the Attleboros, they’ve also undergone enormous changes to their economy and so those are cities really struggling to find their place and there’s a lot of turning down there. And then you have more comfortable suburbs to the north and I think folks are open to the arguments both candidates are making,” he says.
Because of those changes, Ubertaccio points out, it’s not entirely clear which candidate will win. The candidates are conducting their own private polls, but no external polls have been done in months. Fundraising might be their greatest difference. Kennedy has raised a total of nearly $4 million, and Bielat has raised about $800,000. Both candidates are spending the week of Oct. 29 attending as many community events in their district as possible.
