Republicans looking to challenge freshman Rep. Betsy Markey got a double dose of bad news Monday. The CD 4 congresswoman was named to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Frontline Program to hyper-boost her re-election bid on the same day the Dem got a rare head nod from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the pro-business group joined at the hip to the GOP.
The Chamber saluted Markey by press release for backing the stimulus bill, citing Obama administration figures that the district would gain 8,800 jobs over the next two years.
“Since the elections, we’ve worked with the President and Congresswoman Markey to quickly pass a bill that would apply a defibrillator to the economy and shock it back to life,” said Bruce Josten, the U.S. Chamber’s executive vice president of Government Affairs.
“While not everyone in Washington or Colorado agrees on every item in this package, the whole is more important than the individual parts,” Josten said. “Our economy is in uncharted and dangerous waters and inaction from Washington is not an option.”
On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, the DCCC listed 40 incumbents likely to be targeted in 2010 by their campaign season nemesis, the National Republican Congressional Committee. The Dem incumbents will receive early financial rainmaking via independent expenditures in the way of ads and direct mail in order to expand the candidates’ voter outreach and online networking.
In the last election cycle, the DCCC pumped a state record $1.11 million into the Markey-Musgrave slugfest renown for its vicious attack ads to counter the $1.14 million from the NRCC.
