Kerry accuses Bush of ``January surprise'' on Social Security

[Nicholas_J]

(10-17) 11:58 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry accused President
Bush on Sunday of planning a surprise second-
term effort to privatize Social Security and forecast a
"disaster for America's middle class."
Republicans denied the charge as scare tactics
with little more than two weeks remaining in a tight
election. "It is just flat inaccurate," said GOP
chairman Ed Gillespie...

Purely in political terms, Republican survey data
long ago discovered that voters recoil at the use of
the word "privatize" in connection with either Social
Security or Medicare...


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/10/17/politics1458EDT0480.DTL

I suppose this must be driving the Bush people crazy, as this was another of the things that helped Kerry win the nomination over Dean. Just the mention that Dean had spoken about making changes to social security ever was enough to have extremely adverse effects on the Dean campaign. If the media focuses on Bush's privatization scheme, again we may see stronger tilts towards Kerry.

[chimpymustgo]

1. Foxnews is in a TIZZY. Spinning, spinning, spinning.

Trying to discredit Susskind (NYT Mag article) - he has written UNFAVORABLY about the pResident in the past!

[Nicholas_J]

2. Kerry is a genius

He is isolating Bush from all but his most fanatical base. Repubs are very cautious about the privatisation issue, as it does play adversely among the retired, but even more among baby boomers getting ready to retire.

They are frantically trying to spin the mary cheney statements, as the net result of this will ultimately cost Bush support among some evangelicals and have less of an adverse on Kerry among gay voters who would not be likely to vote for Bush given his committment to a federal amendment banning gay marriage. They have even been trying to spin "family oriented" rallies as not being anti-gay, but "pro traditional marriage" trying to blunt the hatred they are advocating.

Kerry is effectively appealing to swing voters, while Bush is trying to hold onto his base.
Kerry is fighting a very effective offensive campaign, while Bush is stuck trying to run a defensivce campaign, the very thing that ended up happening to Dean in the last weeks before the Iowa caucus. Dean had to spend much time and effort defending his statements from the past, statements being made during his campaign, that he had more and more trouble trying to define Kerry. Kerry is doing the same to Bush, putting him in the position of having to defend statements or claim he had been misquoted, while the media gets to repeat what Bush is claiming he was misquoted. Kerry has had to do a little "what I meant was" but Bush is being placed in a far more critical position as his explanations have to be made to far larger groups.

Bush will have to explain what he meant by "I don not know if homosexuals are born or choose to be gay" , while Kerry has to explain what he meant by bringing up Mary CHeneym to gays, a much smaller group than evangelicals. He will have to explain the comments about privatising social security to baby boomers who will not benefit from privatisation and risk having benefits cut if they vote for Bush.

Interesting, As Kerry says, it is never good to peak early, and it appears he is doing everything necessary to peak at the last minute, as he die just before Iowa.