WASHINGTON — New York state’s five new Republican House members will already have targets on their backs when they are sworn in this week.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee insiders say they are going after upstate Republicans Ann Marie Buerkle, Richard Hanna, Nan Hayworth and Chris Gibson for defeat in 2012, including getting started early bashing the Tea Party.
The four are on the hit list because they unseated Democrat incumbents in districts President Obama won in 2008. That’s key to Democrats’ early plans to regain power after the brutal Election Day beating that cost them the House majority this year.
Rep.-elect Mike Grimm, who put Staten Island back in the GOP column in November, is also in the DCCC’s sights because he’s in “a highly competitive, swing district” — even though it backed Republican John McCain for president in 2008, a Democrat strategist said.
Thomas J. Basile, executive director of the New York State Republican Party, said House Democrats should give the “political street fight a rest.”
“Our new Republican members are being sent to Washington to fight for policies that will grow our economy and they have already proven well prepared to tackle the mess left to all of us by the Obama-Pelosi Congress,” Basile said.