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DCCC Targets 10 Republicans on Entitlements

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching a grass-roots attack and online “action center” targeting 10 House Republicans, the latest move in the DCCC’s effort to flip 25 seats and win back the House majority in 2012.

“Did you know that Representative Paul Gosar is part of a majority of the Republicans in Washington pushing to cut seniors’ benefits in Social Security and Medicare?” reads the script from automated phone calls that will target voters in Arizona’s 1st district. “If we don’t act now, 106,289 seniors here in Arizona could have their benefits cut in the middle of a recession.”

In addition to Gosar, the DCCC is doing more automated phone calls, live phone calls, print ads and  emails to go after the following Republicans: Reps. Bill Young (Fla.), Allen West (Fla.), Dan Benishek (Mich.), Joe Heck (Nev.), Lou Barletta (Pa.), Blake Farenthold (Texas), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Sean Duffy (Wis.) and David McKinley (W.Va.). With the exception of Young and Ryan, the Budget chairman, the Members are all freshmen who were first elected last fall.

Further, the DCCC has created a new online action center “to highlight that Social Security belongs to the people who worked their whole life to pay into the system, but House Republicans want to use Social Security and Medicare as a piggy bank for the government,” according to the DCCC announcement. The website allows voters to send letters to their Representatives and print out a pledge for their Member to sign.

The National Republican Congressional Committee largely dismissed the effort.

“This is exactly the place Democrats always go when they realize they’re losing the message game and become desperate,” NRCC spokeswoman Joanna Burgos said. “Unfortunately for them, it’s never worked in the past and it won’t work at a time when millions of Americans are most worried about the economy and the exorbitant gas prices they face at the pump every day.”

And as the DCCC uses entitlement cuts against Republicans, the NRCC continued a new strategy seeking to link House Democrats to rising gas prices. The GOP committee on Tuesday distributed press releases attacking 30 House Democrats, including DCCC Chairman Rep. Steve Israel (N.Y.).

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