Can Dems save seats?

March 25, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Their votes helped deliver President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul. Now, dozens of Democrats are politically imperiled in a contentious environment where emotions are raw and likely to remain so.

Obama plans to use his political heft — and the momentum of victory — to try to prop up lawmakers who stuck with him during the final days that turned the controversial legislation into the law of the land.

They’ll surely need his help.

Despite euphoria in some quarters after Tuesday’s bill signing, opponents kept up their vehement objections to Obama’s plan and those who supported it.

A Virginia blog published what it said was the home address for Rep. Tom Perriello, a first-term Democrat who won election by just 745 votes in 2008 as Obama carried his state. The neighboring VA 6th District Tea Party Watchdogs blog urged readers to pay Perriello a visit.

In Arizona, authorities said vandals broke a glass door Monday morning at the Tucson office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a top election target of the GOP.

“Giffords is toast,” said Tucson tea-party leader Trent Humphries. “She’s going to have a lot of problems, especially since she has some really good candidates running against her.”

In Ohio, Republican challenger Jim Renacci raised $50,000 in mere days while Democratic Rep. John Boccieri mulled over how he would vote on the health bill. He wound up voting for the overhaul; Renacci raised an additional $10,000 immediately.

“John Boccieri and his Democratic colleagues have pursued a failed agenda in Washington while ignoring the will of their constituents at home, and now the American people are fighting back — with their voices, their votes and their wallets,” said James Slepian, campaign manager for Renacci.

These cases — and scores like them — underscore why White House aides have drawn up an intensive calendar to help vulnerable allies defend a vote that was, in many cases, against their own political interests. Obama promised wavering Democrats, primarily moderates in conservative-leaning districts and states, that they wouldn’t be left standing alone if they cast the tough “yes” votes.

In all, 17 Democrats who sided with Obama are seeking re-election in districts that Republican presidential candidate John McCain won in 2008. They include top GOP targets Perriello in Virginia, Betsy Markey in Colorado, Harry Mitchell in Arizona and Suzanne Kos- mas in Florida. One other moderate Democrat now running for the Senate — Brad Ellsworth in Indiana — voted for the measure, too. He’s facing a difficult race in a right-tilting state as Democrats seek to hang onto the seat now held by retiring Sen. Evan Bayh.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain’s 2008 vice-presidential running mate, asked her supporters to help target those races.

“We’re going to hold them accountable for this disastrous Obamacare vote,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page.

Even lawmakers who didn’t vote for the overhaul are having to answer for their party’s signature issue — and could well feel its electoral burden.