The National Republican Congressional Committee has been increasing press-release blasts to some of its targeted districts recently, including two already today.
The releases mostly tie local candidates to the Obama administration and the current Democrats in Congress, just plugging in the name of the local Democratic congressional candidate.
In Arizona's newly formed Ninth Congressional District, the NRCC has targeted two of the three Democrats, although all three candidates are pretty recognizable figures in Arizona politics.
Andrei Cherny — probably the best known of CD9's three Democratic candidates — is one of the targets, as is Kyrsten Sinema, who recently resigned from the state Senate to run for the seat.
For some reason, the NRCC isn't going after Senate Minority Leader David Schapira.
Sifting through the releases, Cherny's name has been plugged into the NRCC's releases three times since October, and Sinema's made 12 appearances.
That may be an indication of which Democrats the NRCC sees as the biggest threats, although ignoring Schapira is a curious move.
The NRCC spent about $46 million on advertising in 66 races in 2010 — and 52 of those races were won by Republicans, if that gives you an idea of the NRCC's sway.
Meanwhile, the NRCC's "Young Guns" program lists Travis Grantham as being "on the radar" in CD9, over the four other Republican hopefuls — Vernon Parker, Leah Campos Schandlbauer, Wendy Rogers, and Martin Sepulveda.
The program's also promoting and targeting a handful of other politicos in Arizona.
Kirk Adams and Matt Salmon are also "on the radar" for the "Young Guns" program, and Ron Barber, Raul Grijalva, and Ann Kirkpatrick have been the subject of NRCC releases.
Below is an example of one of the NRCC releases from yesterday, titled, "Will Kyrsten Sinema Learn from the Democrats' Solyndra Stimulus Disaster?":
WASHINGTON — Kyrsten Sinema's Washington Democrat allies promised jobs and energy independence when they passed their massive $800 billion stimulus, but it became increasingly clear that gambling with taxpayer dollars was going to cause more harm than good. Despite the obvious lessons learned from the unprecedented spending spree, would Sinema also cling to these failed stimulus spending policies like her prospective Democrat leaders after they gave Americans the Solyndra bankruptcy scandal and record-high energy prices?
"Kyrsten Sinema can now see exactly how her Washington Democrat leaders' stimulus spending spree led to failures like the Solyndra bankruptcy instead of economic recovery and energy independence," said NRCC Communications Director Paul Lindsay. "With this in mind, will Sinema join her Democrat allies' efforts to continue the same energy policies that gave Americans the $535 million Solyndra bankruptcy, record-high energy prices and broken promises?"
A former FBI agent hired to investigate the Solyndra bankruptcy concluded the Obama Administration was well aware of the risk when they decided to gamble with millions in taxpayer-funded stimulus loans:
"The Department of Energy was fully aware of the risks in backing Solyndra Inc., a start-up company that pocketed a half-billion dollar DOE loan but never turned a penny in profit before shutting its doors, concludes a former FBI agent hired to examine the company's books...
"In fact, records show, the Energy Department supported the Solyndra financing in the early days of the Obama administration in the face of criticism from officials within several wings of government — the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Treasury and DOE. 'This deal is NOT ready for prime time,' one OMB employee wrote March 10, 2009, government emails show. Ten days later, energy officials announced Solyndra was in line to be the first company to secure a green energy loan guarantee." (Ronnie Greene, "Department of Energy knew of Solyndra risks, former FBI agent finds," iWatch News, 3/29/12)
And Democrats remained committed to their stimulus energy flops after they managed to achieve little except burning through taxpayer money:
"Week after week, Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. 'I don't get it,' he'd say. 'We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean there are no jobs?' But the numbers rarely budged." (Jordan Weissmann, "There Are Way Fewer Green Jobs Than You Think," The Atlantic, 3/26/12)
Will Sinema Learn from the Democrats' Solyndra Stimulus Disaster? http://ow.ly/a3agd #powerfailure
Not exactly groundbreaking material from the NRCC, but it's interesting who they're targeting with the anti-Democrat talking points.
