Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. swung through Ohio Monday to tout the Obama administration's economic policy and to raise money for three junior House Democrats who should face challenging re-election campaigns next year.

In the morning, Biden headlined a Columbus fundraiser for Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, whose likely 2010 opponent is former state Sen. Steve Stivers, the same Republican Kilroy narrowly defeated last year in an open-seat race in the 15th District.

According to a press pool report, Biden characterized Kilroy as a partner in the administration' effort to revitalize Ohio's economy. Kilroy in February was one of 246 House members, all Democrats, who voted for the economic recovery plan, which Biden said has provided needed relief to Ohio eight months after President Obama signed it into law.

Ohio Democratic Reps. John Boccieri and Zack Space, both targets of comeback-minded Republican strategists in the 2010 election, will be raising money jointly later this month.

The Ohio Victory Fund was recently organized with the Federal Election Commission as a joint fundraising committee that will divide its receipts among the Boccieri and Space campaigns.

The committee was set up to accommodate contributions linked to a Boccieri-Space fundraising event later this month that will be headlined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Cleveland Plain Dealer said that the fundraiser will be held Oct. 26 in Cleveland, which is north of Boccieri’s Canton-based 16th and Space’s mostly rural 18th in east-central and south-central Ohio.

Boccieri is seeking a second term and Space is seeking a third term. Both men easily won their 2008 races and are among the 49 House Democrats who were elected or re-elected in districts last year that also voted for Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

— Greg Giroux

The conservative Family Research Council's political action committee plans to target 16 congressional races in 2010. The group's president, Tony Perkins, said the PAC has a goal of raising $1 million to boost grassroots activity in targeted races.

The group wants to spend money to help favored candidates take over the seats now represented by:

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat who is running for a full term in Colorado after his appointment this year;

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, a Democrat who is running for re-election in Connecticut;

New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg, a Republican who is retiring;

Missouri Sen. Christopher S. Bond, a Republican who is retiring;

Rep. John Boccieri, a Democrat who represents Ohio's 16th District;

Republican Jim Renacci is challenging freshman Rep. John Boccieri -- whose 2008 open-seat victory in Ohio's 16th District gave the Democrats control of a seat that had been held for 36 years by retired Republican Ralph Regula.

"It's time to put the people of the 16th District back to work. Creating jobs will be my number one priority," Renacci said in a statement his campaign issued Tuesday.

Renacci is a certified public accountant and is president and general manager of the Columbus Destroyers arena football team. He also is former mayor of Wadsworth, a community of about 20,000 residents in southeastern Medina County, one of four counties wholly or partly in the northeastern Ohio district.

The campaign arm of Republicans in the U.S. House is using this week's legislative recess to criticize some Democrats who backed a climate change bill the House narrowly passed last week.

The National Republican Congressional Committee's advertising campaign consists mainly of low-cost radio advertisements and telephone calls against 14 Democrats, most of them from conservative-leaning districts, who helped provide the winning 219-212 margin in the June 26 vote. Eight Republicans also backed the climate change bill, which most Republicans described as a massive "national energy tax" on consumers.

A top target of the NRCC campaign is first-term Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello, who broke with most politically vulnerable Democratic freshmen in backing the bill. The NRCC is airing a television ad in Perriello's south-central Virginia district that urges viewers to "tell him he was wrong to vote for the [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi energy tax."

Duncan Hunter, a retired Republican who once chaired the Armed Services Committee, has decided that Iraq War veterans are the perfect candidates to revive the Republican Party in 2010.

Hunter -- a Vietnam War vet who briefly sought the 2008 Republican presidential nomination -- is already backing two such candidates as they launch challenges to two of the more junior members of the House Democratic majority: Jesse Kelly, who wants to take on two-term incumbent Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona's 8th District, and Vaughn Ward, whose target in Idaho's 1st District is freshman Democrat Walt Minnick.

Hunter will be attending a series of brunches, receptions and a golf outing in Tucson this weekend with Kelly, who said Hunter is a big attraction in conservative circles in his district in Arizona's southeastern corner. "He did very well in early presidential polls down here," Kelly noted, referring to Hunter's 2008 bid.

During much of his House career, Hunter represented a California district that stretched from San Diego east to the border of Kelly's home state of Arizona, though for the past decade the 52nd District has been confined to San Diego County in California's southwest corner.