Scott Brown Won't Run for Senate

Scott Brown won't run for John Kerry's Senate seat in the June special election, he said, first in a text message to the Boston Herald, then more fully in a follow-up statement to the press:

Over these past few weeks I have given serious thought about the possibility of running again, as events have created another vacancy requiring another special election. I have received a lot of encouragement from friends and supporters to become a candidate, and my competitive instincts were leading in the same direction.

Even so, I was not at all certain that a third Senate campaign in less than four years, and the prospect of returning to a Congress even more partisan than the one I left, was really the best way for me to continue in public service at this time. And I know it’s not the only way for me to advance the ideals and causes that matter most to me.

As we wrote earlier this morning, with Brown out, things aren't looking great for the Massachusetts Republican Party in this race, as there's no obvious person who stands next in line for the nomination.

Brown is presumably headed to the private sector to make a little money, but everyone is already wondering whether he'll run either for Senate or governor in 2014. His statement, interestingly, focuses on the unproductive partisanship in Congress, which could be read to mean that he might lean toward the governor's office.

The fact that the news comes to us, amusingly and bizarrely, from Brown's old buddies at the Herald via text has elicited some amused reactions from journalists on Twitter:

He said he's not running in a text to the Herald. It's like a bad break up. In a text. wbur.fm/TmiSYS#mapoli#masen @scottbrownma

— Meghna Chakrabarti (@MeghnaWBUR) February 1, 2013

Even if a strong Republican doesn't surface, the right vs. left dynamic will sort of play out in the primary fight between the more socially conservative Democrat Stephen Lynch and the more liberal Ed Markey.