Democrats

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, an Upper East Side Democrat, and her New Jersey colleague, Rep. Rush Holt, were tapped by the DNC to do some pushback against Mitt Romney, who has launched a fundraising blitz here and across the Hudson River in the Garden State in the wake of his five-state primary sweep last night.

Maloney and Holt embraced their task with relish, zinging the former Massachusetts governor at length on a media conference call, insisting his policies and ideology are bad for the middle class, women, students and, in general, the entire country.

The congresswoman said Romney’s victory speech last night should have been titled “Back to the Future,” because he’s using the “same old Bush play manual.” She slammed the Romney campaign for punting on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, telling the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein earlier this month they would have to “get back” to him on where the candidate stands on the question of equal pay for women.

The congresswoman also criticized the unwillingness of Romney – and Republicans in general – to heed President Obama’s call to make the rich pay more in taxes, saying that “Americans are not naive; they know a better American begins with everyone being able to pay their fair share.”

But she was temporarily knocked off her talking points when a reporter – I think The Capital’s Reid Pillifant – asked whether she thinks it’s fair game for Democrats to make Romney’s personal wealth a campaign issue – a potentially sensitive subject for Maloney, who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress with an average estimated net worth is over $28 million.

Maloney responded by pivoting as quickly as possible to the moment’s hot topic: The continuation of low-rate student loans.

“I think what’s fair game is his policies really,” the congresswoman said. “…The fact that he has his own wealth doesn’t mean that other Americans are going to have that wealth. I think what we have to look at is the crisis on student loans.”

And then, on safer ground, Maloney was off on running, lamenting how many young people have more student loan debt than credit card debt, and praising President Obama for being “very clear and very personal” on this issue by revealing that he and the first lady only managed to pay off their own student loans eight years ago.

Holt jumped in at some point to take the heat off Maloney, picking up the standard Democratic talking point about Romney being out of touch with regular folks. The former governor “has demonstrated over and over again that he doesn’t understand the lives the concerns of ordinary Americans, and his policy shows it,” Holt said, adding: “He doesn’t understand them, and he doesn’t seem to want to do anything to help them.”

Maloney did later add that she wants to “stay away from class warfare” and prefers to “just look at the math.”

“How in the world can you continue the college loan program…if you’re supporting the Ryan budget and all the cuts that come along with them,” she said, insisting that what Romney should do if he agrees with the Obama on extending low rate student loans is “call on congressional leaders like Speaker (John) Boehner and tell them to support the president’s proposal; the only thing standing in the way of keeping college affordable is the Republican Congress.”