Frank debates 'dining room table' Democratic primary challenger

Last August, town hall protester Rachel Brown asked Representative Barney Frank why he supported President Obama’s “Nazi policy” of health care reform while holding a sign depicting the president with a Hitler-esque moustache. Frank minced no words in his retort: “Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.”

But because Brown is now Frank’s Democratic challenger for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District, he found himself doing something like that in an hour-long debate just a week before the Sept. 14 primary.

"[E]very time I've run for office I've debated every opponent," Frank, who has served 15 terms, told Politico.

Brown, a vocal proponent of economist Lyndon LaRouche and expedited space travel to Mars, once again relied on historical analogies to criticize the President. “President Obama is not in reality. He’s acting in a similar psychological manner to Emperor Nero, which ended in the collapse of Rome,” said Brown in her opening remarks.

Frank quickly addressed Brown’s points before offering his own. “No, I do not think that President Obama thinks like Nero, or like Hitler, as Brown has, in other contexts, portrayed him,” said Frank in his first response.

“I am also not for colonizing Mars, as my primary opponent is,” added Frank later.

Watch the entire debate here.