REPUBLICAN SENATOR Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas made an urgent call to Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s chief campaign strategist, shortly after returning to Washington on October 25. Television ads attacking George W. Bush on Social Security were airing all over his home state, and Hutchinson had seen no Bush response. Republicans were alarmed, fearing the ads might scare enough voters away from Bush to swing Arkansas to Al Gore. Hutchinson was convinced of one thing: Bill Clinton would never let a day go by before responding to a serious attack. Having voted to convict the president on impeachment charges, Hutchinson is hardly a Clinton devotee. But he credits Clinton with sharp political instincts. And he wanted Bush to act similarly, jabbing Gore pointedly with his own TV spot on Social Security.
Rove did not share Hutchinson’s sense of dread. He believed the charge that Bush would jeopardize Social Security won’t fly. Rove gave the senator the gist of a fresh Republican commercial that deals, partly anyway, with Social Security. The ad puts the issue in the broader context of Gore’s credibility. “Why does Al Gore say one thing when the truth is another?” it asks. “His attacks on George Bush’s Social Security plan — exaggerations. The truth? Non-partisan analysis confirms George Bush’s plan sets aside $ 2.4 trillion to strengthen Social Security.” The ad also questions Gore’s promise to deliver smaller government. Hutchinson was satisfied. Yet the Bush response was minimal. Going low-key on an issue as potentially explosive as Social Security was a gamble.
Bush is betting that Social Security is not the issue it once was. For decades, Democrats have used it against Republicans, often late in campaigns and usually demagogically. In 1982, it helped Democrats win House seats. In 1986, it was the pivotal issue as Democrats recaptured the Senate. Most Republican senators had voted for a tiny reduction in the cost-of-living increase for beneficiaries (later rejected by the House). This was ballooned by Democrats into a full-scale threat to the survival of Social Security as we know it. For more than a decade after that, Republicans balked at raising the issue, despite evidence of Social Security’s looming insolvency.
Sensing a national desire to fix the system, Bush has proposed to allow workers to use a portion of their payroll taxes to invest in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds. This would be part of a more sweeping reform of the Social Security system to be worked out in bipartisan negotiations next year, according to Bush. Except for the private investment accounts, Bush has been skimpy on details. But just this single reform proposal has triggered Gore’s claim that Bush would privatize all of Social Security. And it is the basis for two Democratic TV ads charging that Bush “threatens” the system.
The ads suggest the $ 1 trillion Bush allots to the private accounts over 10 years would come out of the pockets of senior citizens. Recorded telephone messages read by actor Ed Asner falsely claim the money would affect “current” benefits, but the TV ads aren’t quite so explicit. One ad, produced by the Gore campaign, says the transfer of $ 1 trillion “would cut Social Security benefits for seniors.” The other ad, aired by the Democratic National Committee, says Bush has promised the same money to both seniors and those with the new investment accounts. “Which promise is he going to keep?” the ad asks. “George W. Bush. His promises threaten Social Security.”
The equanimity with which the Bush campaign reacted to the ads was striking. Rumors of a squabble between Bush and Rove over the strategist’s supposed eagerness to respond full-throttle proved to be untrue. Bush, Rove, and the rest of the Bush crowd are persuaded the old rule of thumb on Social Security no longer applies. That rule: If Social Security is on the table, Republicans lose. Now, according to Rove, it is just another Democratic issue that needs to be dealt with, but not dwelled on. “We don’t want to fight on their turf,” says Matthew Dowd, Rove’s deputy.
What’s taken the sting out of the issue? “The paradigm has changed,” insists Rove. “Public opinion has reached a critical point.” More people fear Social Security won’t deliver for them, or for their children, than fear reform of the entire system. The public thinks Social Security needs to be fixed. Bush vows to do that, Rove says, while Gore proposes no reform at all. Besides, private investment accounts are a popular idea. Bush’s advisers feel he’s immunized on Social Security. “It’s very difficult to pigeonhole Bush as a typical Republican on that issue,” says an aide. He’s styled himself a “compassionate conservative” and a “different kind of Republican,” not a conventional Republican bent on slashing programs.
For Gore, the one requirement to make the Social Security issue work is relentlessness. And once the debates were finished, he was single-minded about it. The result? A slight drift in his direction. Polls showed, however, that the voters coming his way were blacks and union members. Two weeks before the election, he’d maxed out on those groups. For Bush’s strategists, this confirmed their belief that the Social Security issue appeals these days mostly to Democratic base voters — and not to swing voters. Gore may believe that, too. He soon began stressing other issues, first education, then global warming.
So, in the end, Bush chose not to devote either a full speech or an entire television spot to defending himself on Social Security. Instead, he blended the issue into a broader speech on “responsible leadership” on October 26 in Pittsburgh. It was his best speech since his GOP convention address nearly three months earlier. He pledged to “confront the hard issues,” if elected, and said he wouldn’t “leave Social Security as an issue for others to solve.” It’s supposed to be “the third rail of American politics,” he said, dangerous to politicians who touch it. “But if you don’t touch it, you can’t fix it.” Rather than queasy or defensive on Social Security, Bush was resolute and hopeful. This approach encouraged Hutchinson. Maybe it will reassure the nation as well.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
