Four out of every five House members who didn't side with their party on the health care bill represent districts that voted for the opposite party's presidential nominee in the 2008 election.

The party-buckers on the 220-215 vote on Saturday night included 39 Democrats who voted against the bill. Of them, 31 represent districts that voted for John McCain over Barack Obama. Republicans are targeting many of them for defeat in the 2010 election. Of the other eight, three are serving their first terms in districts in which they defeated or succeeded Republicans in the 2008 election.

Eighteen Democrats from McCain-voting districts backed the bill. Among this subset, seven-term Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas represents the most pro-McCain district (59 percent). He's more politically secure than other "McCain Democrats" who voted for the bill, including first-term Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia and second-term Rep. Zack Space of Ohio.

Missouri state Sen. Bill Stouffer on Wednesday formally kicked off his campaign for the Republican nomination to take on veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton in 2010.

GOP officials are vowing to vigorously challenge Skelton in the west-central 4th District for the first time in many years. Stouffer's official campaign launch marked the latest step in what is shaping up as a busy field for the August Republican primary: Former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler and computer security consultant James Scholz have also announced bids to challenge the 17-term incumbent.

Stouffer, a farmer who is in his second four-year term in the Missouri Senate, planned a morning announcement event in Blue Springs, which is near Kansas City in the far western part of the district. He also planned to declare his candidacy later Wednesday in Marshfield, which is in the far southern part of the district, and on Thursday in Jefferson City, Missouri's state capital, at the district's eastern end.

Another Republican is stepping forward to challenge veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton in Missouri's 4th District.

Republican James Scholz, the president of Computer Security Consulting Inc., has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run in the 4th, a conservative-leaning area of western and central Missouri.

Scholz also confirmed his 2010 campaign on his Twitter page.

One advantage to being a long-serving popular incumbent is that some members of the other political party probably have said nice things about you.

A case in point is Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton, who has won support from Democrats and non-Democrats alike in a 33-year House career representing a district in west-central Missouri that has a decided Republican lean.

Mindful that Skelton faces a potentially competitive challenge in 2010 from at least two Republicans, the Missouri Democratic Party last week circulated to reporters some pro-Skelton comments that Missouri Republican Sen. Christopher S. Bond made last week.

Missouri state Sen. Bill Stouffer is seeking the 2010 Republican nomination to oppose veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton.

Stouffer recently filed a statement of candidacy and a statement of organization to organize a campaign in Missouri's 4th, a Republican-leaning district that includes all or part of 25 counties in central and western Missouri.

"Enough is enough," Stouffer told CQ Politics Friday. "We've lost sight of what the role of the federal government is. We forget that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states, not to dictate to the states, and I'm concerned with the deficits that we're running up."

Missouri Republican Vicky Hartzler, a former state representative who was active in her state's effort to ban same-sex marriage, appears to be preparing a 2010 campaign against veteran Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton.

Hartzler has filed a statement of candidacy and a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission to initiate a campaign in the 4th District, a conservative-leaning area of western and central Missouri that takes in Jefferson City, some suburbs of Kansas City and also significant rural territory.

Hartzler, who couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, has a background in education and served in the state House from 1995 through 2000. She was a spokeswoman for an organization that promoted a 2004 state constitutional amendment, overwhelmingly passed by voters, that banned same-sex marriage.

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."