Dems slam GOPers on Social Security
The markets may be stabilizing, but Democrats are quietly acknowledging that volatility is a good thing — at least when it comes to the politics of Social Security and the senior citizen vote.
Three Democratic Senate challengers have launched campaign ads hammering incumbent GOP senators for backing privatization of Social Security, replaying a classic Democratic campaign tactic of talking about how the other guy will take away your monthly check.
The targets: Republican Sens. John Sununu of New Hampshire, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina.
They are three of the most vulnerable GOP senators, and Democrats have seized on the stock market’s volatility by discussing what now seems like ancient history — the 2005 Bush administration proposal for partially privatizing Social Security.
Never mind that the idea never even got serious debate on Capitol Hill.
It’s fodder for scary campaign ads in 2008.
But this isn’t just about Democrats luring senior citizens in their 70s and 80s — it’s aimed at the first generation of Baby Boomers, now on the cusp of retirement and representing a huge, swinging voting bloc. In just the past month as the market has crashed, the 50- to 64-year-old voting demographic has gone from supporting McCain 48 percent to 45 percent to backing Obama 51 percent to 42 percent, according to Gallup polls.
Democrats in congressional races nationwide believe that by pushing Republicans onto the third rail of Social Security, they could make a difference in close races.
“This current economic crisis we find ourselves in right now, as bad as it is, begs the question: What would have happened had privatization gone ahead?” says Colleen Flanagan, a spokeswoman for North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan, who now has a legitimate shot at knocking off Dole on Nov. 4. “The amount of money that would have been lost is astounding, and in these uncertain economic times, more and more people have realized that the people who were in charge shouldn’t be anymore.”
Hagan’s ad has all the classic elements: a concerned elderly person looking pensively at an adding machine and a pile of bills, followed by some really big numbers about the Wall Street crash.
The anti-Sununu ad uses the phrase “truly scary” and has Sununu discussing partial privatization of Social Security. And the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has cut an ad portraying Smith, a moderate, as being in the pocket of Wall Street during the 2005 push to privatize Social Security.
Republicans believe voters will see these ads as just overwrought campaign rhetoric.
"If these hysterical Democratic predictions over the last decade and a half had been even the slightest bit true, Social Security would be long gone," said Dole campaign spokesman Dan McLagan. "It hasn't happened because they were lying to scare seniors then, and Kay Hagan is lying to scare seniors today."
Yet Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman Matthew Miller says it was only a matter of time before the Social Security issue cropped up as voters watched their 401(k) accounts implode. “It’s a timely indictment of Republican senators who supported privatization,” Miller said.
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Dems slam GOPers on Social Security
By MARTIN KADY II | 10/14/08 6:27 PM EDT
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