Democrats target Saxton over insurance for children

U.S. Rep. Jim Saxton (R., Burlington) is already hearing attack ads on the radio, and it's only 2007. His seat is up in 2008.

Saxton, who plans to run for reelection next year, is the subject of ads critical of his vote on a children's health insurance plan. The ads are running during drive time in the Republican Ocean County end of his district.

The ads, which started earlier this week, are sponsored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and are wrapped around traffic and weather reports on a half-dozen radio stations, according to committee spokeswoman Carrie James.

They say, "Did you know that Congressman Saxton gets health care at taxpayers' expense, but Saxton and Bush are blocking health care for 10 million children? Tell Jim Saxton to put families first."

The committee is targeting Saxton and 30 other Republicans in the 2008 cycle and has made fund-raising requests to its national pool of donors.

This race, in which Democratic State Sen. John Adler of Camden is his party's presumptive favorite, is among the highest-ranked of those the Democrats have targeted.

The Saxton ad is one of eight running against Republicans around the country aimed at softening them for the 2008 elections and forcing them to change their votes on a bill that provides health insurance for children of poor and working-poor parents. Though the House passed a version of that bill last week, the measure did not draw enough votes to overcome a promised veto from President Bush, who says the program is too expensive.

Saxton's spokesman, Jeff Sagnip, said Democrats "are clearly trying to use SCHIP [State Children's Health Insurance Program] as a political tool."

He said that when Republicans controlled the House and Senate in 1997 they cobbled together a bill that former President Bill Clinton could live with and that created the program.

"Congressman Saxton supports SCHIP and a funding increase for it," Sagnip said. "He thinks Congress should put politics aside and come up with something that all sides can live with."