From the sound of his resume, he seems like a very public-spirited guy who has made some great contributions (aside from any $$$ ones that is), but as far as making him SecNav, that is just a really, really bad idea.
This is a lot like Clinton making Togo West his SecArm. He had at least served one short tour of duty in the Army 20 years earlier when Carter was President, although it was as a 'Special' JAG tour, nominally at the Pentagon but actually hobnobbing with Congresscritters wearing civvies every day for about two years, until he could get a seemly 'early release' to work on real political jobs. Togo had the advantage that the SecDefs took the hits instead of him, and managed to get through the whole thing with his resume intact.