As part of the effort to win back the House majority, Democrats are eyeing dozens of districts that have tell-tale political signs of Republican incumbents who might be ripe for takedown.
While more than a few of them constitute an exercise in wishful thinking, among the targets is a special subset of seats that, at the moment at least, seems especially promising for 2012 — the so-called Kerry-Obama districts.
The Republican-controlled seats have the strongest Democratic lineage — districts with a proven track record of voting Democratic in presidential election years. Voters in those districts liked Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in a year when the rest of the nation reelected President George W. Bush and fell even harder for Barack Obama in 2008.
Without winning a good portion of those 14 seats — essentially the lowest-hanging fruit — there’s little chance of a change in House control.
