The national Republican Party has targeted 35 Democrats in next year's congressional elections, including Reps. Gene Taylor and Bennie Thompson in Mississippi. In news releases, the National Republican Congressional Committee said the 35 were targeted for votes against President Bush's tax cuts, the Medicare prescription drug plan and other White House priorities.

While a majority of the 205 House Democrats voted the same way, the others weren't targeted because they weren't viewed as possibly vulnerable, NRCC spokesman Carl Forti said. ``We are criticizing the ones who aren't voting in line with their districts and who are potentially vulnerable,'' Forti told Gannett News Service. Taylor, who represents the 4th District in south Mississippi, and most of the other 35 Democrats in the GOP's bull's-eye, were chosen because they represent districts that voted for Bush in 2000 or had very close races last year. Taylor has no GOP challenger, but one could emerge before the Jan. 9 filing deadline.

Taylor spokesman Brian Martin said Taylor's votes against the tax cuts and the Medicare drug benefit reflected the lawmaker's concerns about a rising budget deficit. ``Gene Taylor will debate Dennis Hastert or Tom DeLay about their agenda any time, about how much they added to the debt in the past three years,'' Martin said. ``But he's not going to respond to some press release.''

Thompson's 2nd District, in the Delta, did not vote for Bush in 2000, but Republicans point to the 44 percent of the vote an underfunded, little-known GOP challenger Clinton LeSueur got in 2002 as a sign of hope. LeSueur, Jackson businesswoman Stephanie Summers-O'Neal and Jackson educator James Broadwater have said they intend to challenge Thompson next year. Thompson was not available to comment.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)