{"id":2992,"date":"2004-11-10T12:03:51","date_gmt":"2004-11-10T17:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2992.html"},"modified":"2004-11-10T12:03:51","modified_gmt":"2004-11-10T17:03:51","slug":"can-a-campaign-make-an-issue-a-top-priority-in-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/can-a-campaign-make-an-issue-a-top-priority-in-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a campaign make an issue a ‘top priority’ in secret?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott McClellan said<\/a> something the other day that stood out for me.<\/p>\n

“In terms of Social Security, the President made it a top priority this campaign. It is something we have discussed for quite some time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’re dealing with purely subjective terms here, but this gets back into the whole “mandate” debate. Bush supports a yet-to-determined Social Security privatization scheme, which came up in vague terms and irregular intervals during the campaign. As such, the argument goes, if Bush’s agenda was endorsed by voters, the White House has a “mandate” to pursue privatization. That’s why, in McClellan’s words, Bush allegedly “made it a top priority this campaign.”<\/p>\n

But how does one quantify such a thing? I followed the campaign as closely as anyone and I’d argue that BC04 downplayed<\/i> support for privatization. Indeed, when John Kerry, just two weeks before Election Day, insisted<\/a> that Bush would pursue a plan to privatize Social Security if given a second term, Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Bush, said Kerry was levying at a “false, baseless attack.” Ed Gillespie said Kerry’s charge was “just flat inaccurate.”<\/p>\n

So, privitization was a “top priority,” endorsed by voters? Hardly.<\/p>\n

Let’s put some numbers behind this.
\n
\n* The Bush campaign created 64 TV ads for the campaign. Not one mentioned the president’s position on Social Security.<\/p>\n

* BC04 prepared and released a 26-page “Agenda for America<\/a>” booklet over the summer. There were just 33 words on “voluntary personal retirement accounts” hidden deep within the brochure.<\/p>\n

* Bush’s standard stump speech<\/a> was nearly 4,000 words long — 77 of which dealt with his approach to Social Security in the vaguest and most ambiguous way possible.<\/p>\n

* The president gave no specific policy addresses on the issue at any point over the last four years.<\/p>\n

The public, in other words, has no idea this is coming. As a political matter, this gives the Dems a bit of an advantage. Bush is going to take a risky stab at one of the most popular government programs in American history. The White House’s approach is quite radical, which voters are generally hesitant about, and he refuses to define his own agenda — so Dems should do it for him.<\/p>\n

As Paul Waldman noted<\/a> today, Dems must, must<\/i>, highlight that Bush has already admitted<\/a> that he sees modest “personal accounts” as a first step towards permanently undermining the entire Social Security program.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to take awhile to transition to a system where personal savings accounts are the predominant part of the investment vehicle…. This is a step toward a completely different world, and an important step.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the coming months, political rhetoric will dominate this debate. The GOP is ridiculously good at this (“Death tax” anyone?) so Waldman’s suggestions here are extremely worthwhile.<\/p>\n

Republicans have a number of pleasing, poll-tested phrases they use to describe their plan: “choice,” “an account you control and that the government can’t take away,” etc. So Democrats who want to fight this need a few good sound bites of their own. How about describing Bush’s plan as “taking the security out of Social Security,” or “turning Social Security into a lottery — maybe you’ll win and maybe you’ll lose.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exactly. Dems cannot give in on this, not an inch. <\/p>\n

The only appropriate comparison I can think of is Clinton’s health care plan — a “big” idea, a long-time goal of the party, a radical new approach, and an expensive price tag. The difference is, Americans actually wanted<\/i> sweeping health-care reform and they don’t even realize privatization of Social Security is on the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott McClellan said something the other day that stood out for me. “In terms of Social Security, the President made it a top priority this campaign. It is something we have discussed for quite some time.” We’re dealing with purely subjective terms here, but this gets back into the whole “mandate” debate. Bush supports a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}