Eyeing ’08, Democrats Nurse Freshmen at Risk

From The New York Times:

The 110th Congress has not even been sworn into office. But in a measure of the determination not to surrender the majority in two years, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the presumptive speaker, has instructed aides to begin acting immediately to help Democrats who won by small margins in districts where President Bush did well in 2004 or who coasted in because their opponents were mired by controversy. Those new members are methodically being given coveted spots on high-profile committees, in particular the Financial Services Committee, a magnet for campaign contributions, and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, a platform from which to send money for projects back home.

Their names will be affixed as co-sponsors atop big-ticket measures on ethics and stem cell research that are to be voted on in the first 100 hours of the new Congress, Democratic leaders said.

Several said they were being told that given a choice of voting the party position and casting a vote that would help them in their districts they should feel free to retreat from the Democratic line.

The urgency of the effort reflects the narrow margins that the new majority was built on. Even though the Democrats picked up 30 seats, many of those were by margins of less than five percentage points.