Barney Frank mum on 2012 Senate race

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) isn’t entertaining questions about whether he will run for Senate against Sen. Scott Brown (R) in 2012.

Asked by The Hill if he might run, Frank’s reply was: Ask me later.

With a handful of House races still uncalled in 2010, the longtime Massachusetts congressman complained that constant questions from the press about political campaigns gave the public the impression that politicians are always thinking about the next election.

“I won’t discuss any electoral issues for some time,” Frank said.

Frank, who shepherded an overhaul of Wall Street regulations through the House last year, will lose his chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee when Republicans take power in January.

He has said he would have run for the Senate in 2004 had Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) won the presidency. Democrats were then in the House minority. After Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death in 2009, Frank passed on a run, saying he had too much responsibility in the House as chairman of a major committee in charge of passing the financial regulatory bill.