Dems turn payroll-tax fire on Senate candidates

House Republicans might be taking the brunt of the Democrats’ ire over their refusal to approve the Senate’s two-month extension of the payroll-tax holiday, but Democrats are making it clear they plan to use the issue against GOP candidates for Senate as well.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), who is facing a tough fight for his first full term in the Senate, not only voted for the Senate deal, which extends the tax cut by two months, but took it a step further: He rebuked House Republicans for their refusal to budge from their own plan to extend the tax credit by a full year.

But far from thanking the centrist Brown for standing up to his House colleagues, Democrats are accusing him of political calculation. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee surmised that Brown’s appeal to bipartisanship reflected his desperation and fear of losing in November to Elizabeth Warren, who is favored to win the Dem primary.

“This is far from a profile in courage, it is pure pandering by a vulnerable incumbent who is already losing in the polls,” DSCC spokesman Matt Canter said Tuesday evening. “Voters up there have a nickname for this kind of thing. They call it Mitt Romney.”

Brown wasn’t alone among Republican senators up for reelection who called on their party’s House members to pass the Senate deal. Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), Dean Heller (Nev.) and others joined the chorus calling for the House GOP to get behind the deal that Senate leaders from both parties struck.

And in North Dakota, Democrats accused freshman GOP Rep. Rick Berg — who is running for retiring Sen. Kent Conrad’s (D-N.D.) seat — of choosing his allegiance to the Tea Party over a tax break for struggling workers.

“Even during the holidays, Rick Berg and his Tea Party colleagues showed they were more interested in playing hyper-partisan games than standing up for middle-class North Dakota families,” state Democratic Party spokeswoman Alison Kelly said in a news release.

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