Will Meehan Leave Congress?

According to the Boston Globe, Marty Meehan (MA-05) is considering taking a position as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

The opportunity to become chancellor, however, could pose a difficult choice for Meehan, with Democrats in control of the US House and Senate after a dozen years of Republican rule. Meehan, as the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, is hiring a new staff and laying the groundwork for investigations and hearings into fraud and abuse in the spending of Iraq reconstruction funds. He is scheduled to lead a delegation of its members to Iraq in mid-February.

On the other hand, Meehan, who leads most other incumbent congressmen with a $4.9 million campaign war chest, saw one of his political ambitions fade last week, when John F. Kerry dropped out of the 2008 presidential race and announced he would seek reelection to his Senate seat, which many members of the delegation had hoped to pursue. There has not been a US Senate vacancy in Massachusetts since 1984.

It seems incomprehensible that someone would leave an important House subcommittee chairship to be chancellor of UMass-Lowell,  but, well, what if?

Remember that Meehan was one of the notable misers of the House back before the elections, when we were trying to get members of Congress without meaningful opponents to give some of their campaign funds to the DCCC so that it could support more candidates and get more Democrats elected to Congress.  At the time he was presumed to be saving his money for a Senate run should Kerry run for president, but that didn't stop Barney Frank, who was believed to have the same ambition and had less cash on hand, from giving 30% of what he did have.

While Meehan is a Democrat and would almost certainly be replaced by a Democrat, therefore, what kind of Democrat he's replaced by could be interesting.  (And hey, special elections are always mid-cycle fun for us junkies, right?)