Bush Plans a Media Blitz on Social Security
Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:04 AM ET
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush will spearhead an election-style public relations campaign early next year to try to convince Americans that Social Security is in urgent need of change but will keep dollar and cent details deliberately vague, analysts and officials say.
With Bush's political capital riding on a successful overhaul of the popular retirement program, the White House and its allies plan to bombard the public with presidential speeches, television and radio ads, newspaper op-ed articles and grass-roots rallies between now and early 2005.
"It's going to be a battle royal, very much like an election campaign but over an issue rather than a candidate," said Stephen Moore, executive director of Club for Growth, a Republican group that hopes to spend $15 million on a media campaign backing the White House.
"This is about winning, and Bush can't afford to lose."
Meanwhile, opponents accuse the White House of exaggerating the issue's urgency, saying it used a similar ploy to justify the war in Iraq by citing an urgent threat from Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that have never been found.
"The administration's blitz on Social Security is eerily reminiscent of the way they made their case for war," said David Wade, spokesman for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee who sits on the Senate Finance Committee.
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