No, I’d never heard of him, either, and I live twenty miles north of the State House. From the Boston Globe:
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has picked William “Mo” Cowan, his former chief of staff, to serve as the state’s interim US senator until the successor to John F. Kerry is chosen by the voters in a June 25 special election…
Cowan said he was “honored and humbled” to get the temporary post, which will make him the first African-American to represent Massachusetts in the Senate since Edward Brooke held the seat as a Republican from 1966 to 1978…
He said he was not running for office and was not a “candidate today or any time in the future.” The governor asked him to take the job Tuesday, he said…
In choosing Cowan, Patrick rejected former US representative Barney Frank’s request to be given the job.
“I know Mr. Cowan is committed to working hard and in socially-fair and economically-efficient manner toward resolving pending budget issues,” Frank said in a statement.
A primary election for the seat is set for April 30 and US Representative Edward Markey is so far the only high-profile Democrat to formally enter the race. However, US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, the former president of an ironworkers union from South Boston, is expected to announce by Thursday whether he will run for the Senate, say his political associates.
Former US Senator Scott Brown, who lost to US Senator Elizabeth Warren last fall, is considering whether to enter the race for the Republicans.
“I am very pleased to welcome Mo Cowan to the Senate,” Warren said in a statement. “As former chief of staff to Governor Patrick, Mo brings a deep knowledge of the issues facing the people of our Commonwealth to the Senate. He will be a committed, hardworking interim Senator, and I look forward to working closely with him to protect the interests of Massachusetts families.”
Well, it was the Governor’s plum to award, and he has made his choice. Assuming that Cowan is honest when he says he is “not a candidate, today or at any time in the future” and that Patrick only asked him to take the job yesterday, one might wonder if our Governor had tried and failed to entice some other candidate into the role. As long as Cowan votes the Democratic party line as presented by President Obama, I guess we Democrats will have to accept… but I’ll always regret not getting to see Barney Frank face down the Senatorial Teahadis.
The people at Blue Mass Group seem underwhelmed at the moment. The Fox-News-postive commentors at the Globe are, on the other hand, ecstatic…
***********
Apart from the disappointments which are the natural lot of Democrats, what’s on the agenda this afternoon?