Bipartisan group will launch TV spots for House centrists

The centrist group Center Forward is going on air with its first ad buy of the election cycle, touting the work of centrists who voted to withhold salaries from Congress unless it passed a budget.

The ads, backing five Democrats and a pair of Republicans, are the opening salvo in what the group promises to be a major effort to shore up centrists in the 2014 elections. [WATCH AD]

{mosads}The ads will support Democratic Reps. Ron Barber (Ariz.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Cheri Bustos (Ill.), Pete Gallego (Texas) and John Carney (Del.), as well as Republican Reps. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.).

Sinema, Barber, Bustos and Gallego all face potentially tough elections this fall, while Hanna might face a Tea Party challenge.

The initial flight of ads has $755,000 behind it and will run during the next two weeks, with another round planned for May or June. Center Forward spent more than $5 million in the 2012 election, and former Rep. Bud Cramer (D-Ala.) promised it would exceed that level this year.

“We’re going to be a force to contend with from now on,” he told The Hill.

Cramer said the decision to back members on “No Budget, No Pay” specifically was because they’d shown a willingness to buck their leadership.

“We felt this was an issue where some members in a bipartisan way stepped forward,” he said. “It demonstrates to the public that is hearing so much extremism from the far left and far right, here’s a voice for the center.”

Here’s a sample script for the ad that will run supporting Barber:

“Bickering. Dysfunction. Washington’s broken, but Ron Barber is bringing people together to do something about it. He worked with Republicans and Democrats to require that, if Congress doesn’t pass a budget, it doesn’t get paid,” says the ad airing in Barber’s district. “And Barber has led by example, voting to block a congressional pay raise, refusing his pay during the government shutdown, even donating his congressional healthcare subsidy to southern Arizona charities.”