Batten the hatches, AARP: you’re about to come under fierce, unrelenting fire from the folks who ran the Swift Boats Vets p.r. campaign.
Taking its cues from the success of last year’s Swift boat veterans’ campaign in the presidential race, a conservative lobbying organization has hired some of the same consultants to orchestrate attacks on one of President Bush’s toughest opponents in the battle to overhaul Social Security.
“They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts,” said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. “We will be the dynamite that removes them.”
Though it is not clear how much money USA Next has in hand for the campaign – Mr. Jarvis will not say, and the group, which claims 1.5 million members, does not have to disclose its donors – officials say that the group’s annual budget was more than $28 million last year. The group, a membership organization with no age requirements for joining, has also spent millions in recent years vigorously supporting Bush proposals on tax cuts, energy and the Medicare prescription drug plan.
So far, the groups dueling over Social Security have been relatively tame, but the plans by USA Next foreshadow what could be a steep escalation in the war to sway public opinion and members of Congress in the days ahead.
Already, AARP is holding dozens of forums on the issue, has sent mailings to its 35 million members and has spent roughly $5 million on print advertisements in major newspapers opposing private accounts. “If we feel like gambling,” some advertisements said, “we’ll play the slots.”
Writes Bull Moose:”What’s next – a Regnery book titled Unfit to Age? While the Bushies take the lofty tact of an “ownership society”, expect the lowroaders to employ every slimy trick in the book to promote privatization. After all, it’s only business.”
One thing seems clear. The battle over Social Security increasingly seems as if its going to evolve (or devolve) into a bitter partisan battle. The GOPers would be the ones pushing it (providing some Republican members of Congress get over their fears of voter retribution or the plan failing to pass Congress if they back it) and the Demmies will be trying to stop it. Unless both sides come up with something both can live with it promises to be one more highly polarizing issue.
Meanwhile, the AARP isn’t exactly an icon, but going after them could prove highly perilous because there could be backlash. On the other hand, if the issue is framed in terms of the older population with the AARP and younger voters, it could work — but that would again require polarization versus accomodation…turning it into a young versus old issue.
UPDATE: Josh Marshall notes that USA Next has hired Art Linkletter as spokesman, to give the impression that it’s a seniors group. Marshall contends this has the earmarks of a Karl Rove operation.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.