Mitt Romney and his advisers have been pushing hard against Rick Perry over the Texas governor’s description of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” Now, another Republican rival, Michele Bachmann, is preparing to hit Perry on the same issue.
“Bernie Madoff deals with Ponzi schemes, not the grandparents of America,” says a Bachmann adviser. “Clearly she feels differently about the value of Social Security than Gov. Perry does. She believes Social Security needs to be saved, that it’s an important safety net for Americans who have paid into it all their lives.”
Bachmann is in Florida for private meetings and to prepare for Monday night’s GOP debate in Tampa. It’s no secret the Bachmann camp was unhappy with the moderators of last Wednesday’s Republican debate at the Reagan Library, a debate which began as a Perry-Romney showdown and gave less time to other candidates. This time, in Tampa, it seems safe to predict that moderators will ask at least some other candidates whether they agree with Perry’s characterization of Social Security.
“Certainly not,” the adviser says. “She strongly disagrees with his position on that, and it’s clearly not something that’s going to sit well with the people of Florida and Iowa and South Carolina and many of the early states, where there is a large population of seniors who rely heavily on Social Security. For [Perry] to scare them is wrong.”
Even before Perry entered the race, Bachmann was quite cautious on the issue of entitlement reform. She voted in favor of the Paul Ryan budget in the House last April, but on the presidential campaign trail she has made clear that if elected she would rely on her own plan, not Ryan’s. But she has offered no specific proposal on what she would do to rein in the cost of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Bachmann has struggled to gain traction in the GOP race after her August 13 victory in the Ames, Iowa Republican straw poll. Recent polling has her tied with Ron Paul for third place in the race, well behind Perry and Romney. But her advisers stress there is still plenty of time to catch up; the debate Monday night, presented by CNN and the Tea Party, will be just the second debate with the full Republican field.
