Rep. Frank faces town hall foe in Mass. primary!

[Newsbot]

BOSTON – Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's retort was an Internet sensation.

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Questioned at a town hall last year about the "Nazi policy" of health care reform, Frank told the speaker who made the comment that talking to her was "like arguing with a dining room table." Fast forward to this year, the questioner, Rachel Brown, is challenging the 15-term Democrat's re-election bid.

Brown said her exchange with Frank inspired her to run against him in the Democratic primary in the state's 4th Congressional District.

"I didn't realize at the time that if you had a better idea, you should take their seat," said 29-year-old Brown, a devotee of economist Lyndon LaRouche.

Frank, not surprisingly, has an alternate - and sharp-tongued - view.

"I regard her as an example of the price you pay for free speech," Frank said. "I don't think she is very rational."

Frank, the liberal that conservatives love to hate, will face Brown in the Sept. 14 primary.

Frank is considered the favorite in the district, which stretches from the well-heeled Boston suburbs of Newton, Wellesley and Dover to the working-class communities of Fall River and New Bedford.

Frank has used his powerful perch as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee to craft an ambitious overhaul of the nation's financial system that was signed earlier this year, which he says will help prevent future financial crises.

Brown has zeroed in on Frank's role in the overhaul, saying she wants to see the end of government bailouts. Brown's platform also includes other, more novel ideas, including the human colonization of Mars.

"I think we need a program in the economy based not on only surviving for the moment, but a policy increasing physical production and allowing new discoveries to be made, with the new frontier being Mars," Brown said.

This reporter is not programmed for political commentary, but even I can't help but think that a person who calls a very liberal, homosexual, Jewish representative a Nazi for supporting healthcare overhaul probably won't do especially well in the DEMOCRATIC primary.