DALLAS (AP) _ If U.S. Rep. Chris Carney feels like he has a target on his back, it's for good reason.

Republicans view the freshman Democrat's 2006 election as a fluke — he rolled to victory after his GOP predecessor became embroiled in a sex scandal — and see his House seat as ripe for the taking.

Two wealthy businessmen with similar campaign pitches are vying for the April 22 Republican nomination to challenge Carney in November, dipping into their own personal fortunes as they try to get the attention of voters preoccupied with the presidential primary.

Dan Meuser, 44, and Chris Hackett, 45, say Carney is too liberal for northeastern Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District, a sprawling, rural, heavily Republican region that President Bush won in 2004 with 60 percent of the vote. The district's most recognizable city is Williamsport, home of the Little League World Series.

Voters "want this district back in the hands of a conservative Republican," said Meuser, president of Pride Mobility Products Inc., which sells motorized scooters, lift chairs and other products for the disabled.

Though he is unopposed in the Democratic primary, Carney is already fighting back, accusing both Republicans of trying to buy their way into Congress.

He calls himself a conservative Democrat, and said the charge that he is out of step with conservative voters won't stick. He has staffed his office with Republicans and said he hasn't been afraid to buck the Democratic leadership, including on the issue of illegal immigration.

"I think those attacks are going to be blunted by the fact that my overall voting record is very, very good and I do vote the values of the district," said Carney, 49, a former Pentagon intelligence analyst and political science professor. "When I came into office, I promised I would govern down the middle and that's exactly what I did."

Carney's election would have been unthinkable a few years ago in a district that had not sent a Democrat to Washington in more than four decades. But Don Sherwood's four-term House career was ruined after a woman 35 years his junior sued him in 2005, alleging the married father of three choked her at his Capitol Hill apartment. Sherwood admitted having an affair with the woman but denied hurting her. The case was settled out of court for about $500,000.

Carney beat Sherwood with 53 percent of the vote in a year that saw Democrats end 12 years of Republican rule in Congress.

Now Hackett and Meuser are trying to use Carney's record against him while trying to differentiate themselves from one another.

The Republican candidates are similar in many ways: They have built successful businesses, they are running as family-values and economic conservatives, and they have opened their wallets to fund their campaigns. Meuser has spent nearly $1 million of his own money and Hackett, whose four companies include a staffing agency and an insurance brokerage, has spent nearly $600,000.

On the campaign trail and in TV ads, Hackett attacks the explosive growth of earmarks, the pet projects lawmakers insert into funding bills.

"It's a way that leadership shackles new members of Congress and junior members of Congress to get them to do the things what they want them to do," said Hackett, who supports a moratorium on earmarks.

Meuser said he supports "complete elimination of earmarks" for all members of Congress, but that, unlike Hackett, he would not unilaterally forgo them, saying that would do nothing to solve the problem.