National Republicans Still Targeting Congressman David Cicilline
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Congressman David Cicilline’s decisive victory over Republican Brendan Doherty hasn’t stopped the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) from continuing to target the soon-to-be second term Congressman.
In an e-mail sent Wednesday, the NRCC suggested that President Obama’s victory “has led the country into a cycle of out of control spending and imploding debt – and now he wants a blank check to keep raising the nation’s debt limit whenever he wants.” The e-mail then asks, “so will David Cicilline sponsor Obama’s big spending plan and bring it up for a vote?”
“Enabling President Obama’s stimulus plan to spend more of our money would be to condemn us to persistently weak growth and prolonged uncertainty,” said NRCC Communications Director Paul Lindsay. “Will David Cicilline hand Obama another blank check funded by the American people?”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe NRCC spent the weeks leading up to the 2012 election unleashing brutal attacks on Cicilline’s record as a defense lawyer prior to becoming Mayor of Providence. Earlier this year, Roll Call ranked an anti-Cicilline ad released by the NRCC third on its list of “meanest, most vicious, most depraved House and Senate political advertisements.”
While the NRCC may still be interested in attacking the Congressman, history suggests Cicilline’s big victory (he won by more than 12 percentage points), means it will be very difficult to remove him from office now. Incumbent re-election rates in the House tend to hover around 94 percent and the election following the first term tends to be the best chance of a challenger unseating a sitting member of Congress.
