Mo Cowan will serve as interim senator until a June 25 special election. Patrick taps ex-aide for Kerry seat

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick picked Mo Cowan, his former chief of staff, Wednesday to replace John Kerry as interim U.S. senator until a June 25 special election.

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Cowan will become the second sitting African-American member in the Senate.

The race to permanently fill the seat will most likely pit Republican Scott Brown, who lost last November, against the winner of a Democratic primary. Rep. Ed Markey is running for the Democratic nod and Rep. Stephen Lynch is expected to. The primary is April 30.

“Mo’s service on the front lines in our efforts to manage through the worst economy in 80 years and build a better, stronger Commonwealth for the next generation has earned him the respect and admiration of people throughout government,” Patrick said in a statement.

Patrick’s move is a rejection of Barney Frank, the outspoken longtime congressman who made public his desire to get the appointment. There was also some speculation that Vicki Kennedy, Ted’s widow, might get the temporary job.

Cowan expects to be sworn in early next week and intends to keep Kerry’s staff. He pledged that there is “not going to be any daylight” between him and the Patrick administration.

The senator-designate also stressed that “this is going to be a very short political career.”

“I am not running for office,” he said, “at any time today or in the future.”

Cowan has continued to serve Patrick as a senior adviser since stepping down as chief of staff. He was poised to re-enter private practice, something he will now postpone until the summer. Before becoming chief, he was the governor’s legal counsel. And before that, he worked at the top-drawer law firm Mintz Levin. He chaired the Anti-Money Laundering Compliance and Counseling practice group there, according to his résumé on LinkedIn, working with the White Collar Defense group. He also worked a stint as a special assistant district attorney in office of the Middlesex County District Attorney.

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“He grew up in a largely segregated tobacco town in rural North Carolina, the son of a machinist and a seamstress,” according to a 2010 Boston Globe profile. “As a boy, he watched the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross in town, march on his high school and hand out literature on Main Street.”

Patrick called Cowan “a highly respected public citizen” and “an affirmation of the American dream” at a 20-minute news conference to unveil the announcement.

In his speech, Cowan paid tribute to his mother — who raised him as a single mother after his father died when he was a teenager. She still lives in North Carolina and could not make the announcement because she’s recovering from knee-replacement surgery.

“My mother told me days like today were possible,” he said.

Asked about the significance of being African-American, Cowan recalled a line his mom repeated to him as a kid: “You’re better than no one, but you can be everyone’s equal.”

Cowan went to Duke University, and law school at Northeastern brought him to Boston 22 years ago. He cold-called Patrick in the 1990s to seek mentorship, according to the old Globe story, and he helped Mitt Romney’s administration identify qualified minority candidates for judicial appointments.

His wife, Stacy, is a lawyer at another Boston firm. They have two young sons, Miles and Grant.

The governor’s office distributed statements of support for Cowan from four outsiders. One is from Republican state Rep. Dan Winslow, a former presiding justice of the Wrentham District Court.

“Mo personifies the dignity, intelligence and calm judgment that we hope are qualities of all members of the U.S. Senate,” Winslow said. “He has the ability to work across the aisle, which is sorely needed in Washington, D.C.”

Patrick joked that Cowan normally wears a trademark bow tie, but he ditched it for a necktie on Wednesday.

Cowan has maintained a very low public profile outside Beacon Hill. He does not appear to have had a Wikipedia page before Wednesday.

He visited D.C. just last week for the Inauguration as a civilian in the sea of humanity.

He tweeted, “the real question is how many galas will I crash? Answer: none. Security around here is not for faint of heart.”

Kerry was confirmed Tuesday with a 94-3 vote in the Senate. Cowan’s appointment makes newly elected Elizabeth Warren the Bay State’s senior senator.