Democrats land top recruits in two GOP-heavy districts

George served in the military for close to 30 years, most recently serving in Afghanistan and on the president’s National Security Council. He played up his bipartisan tendencies in an interview with The Associated Press.

“I want to be judged for being a patriot,” he said. “My personal feelings are I admire the Democrat party for its sense of responsibility to help other people. And I admire the Republican approach to fiscal responsibility, to be responsible with the taxpayers’ money.”

{mosads}The district in which he will run has swung back and forth between the parties in the last decade, but Republicans made it a bit more conservative in redistricting last fall, dropping Obama’s percentage there from 49 percent to 46 percent. Young, a former Marine and staffer for Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), beat then-Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.) by 10 points in last fall’s Republican wave, after besting former Rep. Mike Sodrel (R-Ind.) in a tightly contested primary.

In Oklahoma, Wallace, a former assistant U.S. attorney, will run for the open seat currently held by Boren, whose retirement in 2012 is a major concern for Democrats. Boren held on to the district for four terms despite its leaning heavily Republican; redistricting in 2011 did little to change the balance of the district.

Wallace’s announcement comes to the relief of Democrats in Washington, who had hoped for a centrist, pro-gun-rights candidate who would give them a fighting chance in the district that chose Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over Obama by more than 30 points in 2008.

“As someone who has been on the front lines fighting crime, I know we have all the laws on the books we need to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals,” Wallace said in announcing his candidacy. “We don’t need and I won’t support gun control. We need to strongly enforce those existing laws.“

Wallace will be aided in the primary by the support of national Democratic groups who recruited him and are touting his career as a prosecutor as evidence he’s the tough, experienced public servant needed to fend off a Republican challenger.

“What leaders of both parties don’t get is that their fighting is killing our economy,” Wallace said.

Boren, a Blue Dog from a major political family in Oklahoma, easily won all of his reelection campaigns. He voted frequently with Republicans and was a vocal gun rights advocate.