I'm not surprised. Republican
Sean Bielat ran a strong campaign against him last go-around. Being Massachusetts and all, it wasn't that close but he certainly gave Barney a scare for a while and made some significant inroads with name recognition. During that campaign, there were Sean Bielat yard signs all over Newton. With or without Barney in the race, I think Bielat has a good chance of capturing the seat in 2012 and he appears interested.
Let’s hope so; in the 6th where I live Hudak signs greatly outnumbered those for Tierney (though he started to get his up eventually). But “lawn signs don’t vote”...Both will indeed have the name recognition this time around (and here in the 6th we have picked up some conservative-leaning territory, but whomever runs vs. Tierney will also have to deal with Dem-territory like Lynn)