This race is going to be interesting - Massachusetts Congressional Seat

Barney Frank has done a lot of damage during his almost 30 years in Congress and it seems that there is a Republican candidate who stands a good chance of sending Mr. Frank into a much needed retirement. From Hot Air:

Poll surprise of the day: Barney Frank in trouble?
The Sean Bielat campaign has declared themselves within reach of unseating Barney Frank in Massachusetts� 4th CD, one of the presumed safest districts for Democrats in the nation. The poll, conducted for the campaign by OnMessage, shows Frank falling below the 50% mark despite the D+14 composition of his constituency. Bielat comes within nine points, even though the poll shows that he still badly trails in name recognition.

The memo from the pollster explains that Bielat could shock the world on November 2nd:

The ballot is very encouraging and shows Bielat at 38%, Frank at 48% and 13% undecided.

This is very encouraging because Barney Frank is an incumbent congressman who has served in Congress since 1981, has a favorable opinion slightly above 50% in a strongly Democratic district, but is now below 50% on the ballot. Frank has fallen 5 points on the ballot since July and shows that the national wave of frustration amongst the voters is even reaching the Democrat stronghold of Massachusetts 4th Congressional District.

We find more erosion of Frank�s support when we look at independent voters. In July, Frank led this critical demographic 44% to Bielat�s 37%, now, in September Frank has plunged 10 points with independents and trails with just 34% to Bielat�s 51%.

Sean Bielat has a promising chance of creating a major upset in this race. With proper funding and the ability to compete with Frank for the last four weeks of the election, Massachusetts 4 could provide the upset story of the 2010 midterm elections.

Any time an incumbent falls below 50%, it�s a sign of trouble. In this case, Frank can�t even blame Barack Obama, who gets mildly positive approval ratings in the district, 52/42, as does Frank himself, 53/40. In a generic ballot question, the Democrat leads here by eleven points, 44/33. Bielat gets a 24/9 approval rating, with 67% either having no opinion of him or not knowing his name at all.

Yet Frank only gets 45.2% of the likely voters polled in this survey to commit to voting for him, well below the 50% needed to secure the seat. Beilat gets 36.5% of the vote, well above his name recognition value. With leaners, it becomes 48.2/38.4 Frank, closer to 50% but still short � and with only 0.4% of the voters having never heard of Frank, Bielat has a lot more upside over the next six weeks.

Very cool - Beliat has quite the history too -- from the Meet Sean part of his website:

Sean�s career highlights include�

�Major, U.S Marine Corps Reserve
�Independent Consultant. Helped client companies build market strategies
�Program Manager, iRobot Corporation. Led $100 million, 100 person business line providing life-saving defense robots used to destroy roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan
�Chairman, NATO Industrial Armaments Group. Led an international team studying the potential for use of advanced reconnaissance technology in urban warfare
�Management Consultant, Mckinsey & Company
�Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps (active duty)

So the guy is not only a Marine, he also builds Military Robots. MBA from Wharton doesn't hurt either. Like I said, this will be an interesting one...