COHASSET — Less than three weeks after losing a special US Senate election, Republican Gabriel E. Gomez said he is open to making another run for political office.
“If something does pop up and I’ve got the same passion that I had for this last race, then I would be interested in it,” he said.
In his first postelection interview, Gomez was reflective about his US Senate run, admitted to some missteps in his initial high-profile bid for elective office, but appeared to be at peace with the results.
Life has mostly returned to normal for the 47-year-old former private equity investor and Navy SEAL. Instead of crisscrossing the state for campaign events, Gomez’s days are busy taking care of his four children, spending time with his wife, and lacing up his neon green-and-blue New Balance sneakers for long runs along Cohasset’s picturesque streets.
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But Gomez said, if the opportunity feels right, he may return to pounding the pavement on the campaign trail.
Sitting at the kitchen counter in his more than 100-year-old house on Sunday morning, he left the door wide open to another bid for public office.
Asked whether he would be open to positions at both the federal and state level, Gomez replied, “Yeah. Nothing’s off the table.”
Gomez was a political newcomer when he launched his Senate bid early this year. His only previous political run was an unsuccessful bid for selectman here.
In the June 25 election to replace John F. Kerry in the US Senate, Gomez lost to US Representative Edward J. Markey by 10 percentage points. But after his defeat, top Republicans expressed interest in seeing Gomez run in another race.
On the night of his loss, the US senator who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Jerry Moran of Kansas, encouraged him to run again for US Senate. Last week, US Representative Greg Walden, the Republican charged with keeping his party in control of the US House of Representative, hinted to a Capitol Hill newspaper that Gomez should consider a bid against Democrat William R. Keating, who represents the Ninth District. Gomez’s name has also been floated as a potential candidate for a number of political offices in Massachusetts.
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When pressed, Gomez said he had not given it enough thought to know what office, if any, he might be interested in.
Over the course of the half-hour interview, three of Gomez’s children tromped in and out of the kitchen. One grabbed a box a Frosted Flakes. His wife, Sarah, set off for a run.
His family’s two Labrador retrievers, tails wagging furiously, greeted visitors at the door.
Gomez said he was enjoying his life and would take the time to make a thoughtful decision before embarking on whatever his next endeavor might be, whether elective office or a return to the private sector.
“What I don’t want to do,” he said, “is to rush into anything.”
Unlike many candidates who still evince the bitter sting of defeat weeks after an election is over, Gomez seemed more philosophical than emotional about the results of the Senate race.
“He won,’’ Gomez said matter-of-factly. “The people spoke. So I have no qualms about the outcome.”
He explained he was pleased with the campaign he ran and thought that big spending on television advertisements by Markey and allied Democratic groups had a substantial effect on the outcome.
“When you get heavily outspent like that, it’s tough,” Gomez said.
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He also spoke openly about where he, as a candidate, missed the mark during his almost five-month campaign.
In an interview with a National Public Radio reporter in May, Gomez called Markey “dirty and low — pond scum” for running a Web video that juxtaposed an image of Gomez with a picture of Osama bin Laden.
The Republican was roundly criticized for that remark.
“Obviously I would do that one differently,” he told the Globe on Sunday. That “associated me with a comment like that, which is unfortunate because, in reality, that’s not me.”
Gomez, chuckling, recounted that his wife found about the remark on the Internet and immediately got in touch with him. “She texted me right away and was like, ‘you did what?’ And I’m like, ‘I know,’ ” Gomez said.
He said, as a “green” candidate, the experience was instructive about the modern media environment.
“You realize, holy cow, any little thing could” go viral, he said.
Speaking more broadly, he explained there were two ways of seeing his campaign. One was that a nonpolitician with a compelling biography could not gain the traction needed to win in a compressed campaign. The other was that someone who began his effort completely unknown to the electorate, running against a massive political machine, was able, in a few months, to come somewhat close to victory
Gomez seemed to settle on the latter as the way he viewed his first leap onto the national political stage and said he hoped it would encourage other “folks” with nonpolitical backgrounds to run for office.
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“Here’s a guy who nobody knew about and he got within 10 points and they literally had to bring in every superhero in the world,” he said, laughing.
He ticked through all the political power players who came to Massachusetts to campaign for Markey: President Obama, Michelle Obama, former president Bill Clinton, and Vice President Joe Biden.
But on Sunday, his focus was mostly away from politics.
It was a beautiful summer day and Gomez had his running shoes on.
Joshua Miller can be reached at joshua.miller@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jm_bos.