Charlie Rangel

The 2010 congressional elections may be two years down the road, but the National Republican Congressional Committee is wasting no time getting started on their Herculean task of weakening Washington's strong Democratic incumbents.

As noted here on PolitickerWA.com last month, all but one incumbent in the state won re-election by wide margins that held throughout their home districts with the sitting U.S. Representative winning nearly every county by more than twenty points.

The RNCC is attempting to connect local politicians to news stories about ethics issues involving Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), one of the top Democrats in the House. They pushed Rangel-related stories a lot during the 2008 campaign, though they barely saw any life here in Washington state, some 2,800 miles away from Washington, D.C. and Rangel's New York City district.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is going local, even here in Washington, with the scandal plaguing Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY). In light of the revelation that Rangel has admitted to owing thousands in back taxes, the NRCC is attempting to tie local Congressmen and candidates to Rangel, and has called on three of them –Darcy Burner (D-Carnation), Rep. Brian Baird (D-Vancouver) and Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Arlington)—to return all contributions from Rangel’s PAC.

Still, House Democrats hit back at the Republicans, as reported by The Politico. They called the NRCC's attempts to make an issue of this hypocritical because of the sizeable number of Republicans who have refused to return PAC money from two Republican Congressmen under federal investigation, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Rep. Jerry Lews (R-Calif.).