Philip Klein
The American Spectator
7/20/2010
Facing dangerously low approval ratings for an incumbent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has turned to an age-old tactic in his bid for re-election: scaring senior citizens.
As soon as Sharron Angle emerged as his Republican opponent, Reid made Angle’s professed support for personal retirement accounts a centerpiece of his campaign against her, launching a series of ads blasting her for wanting to “wipe out” Social Security.
Reid’s gambit to defend his seat in a state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate is part of a broader effort by Democrats to navigate a difficult electoral environment. With a weak economy and a public that has turned against President Obama and his agenda, Reid and his fellow Democratic incumbents are trying to resurrect their glory days, when they were the only ones standing in the way of President Bush’s sinister plot to destroy the popular but fiscally unsound government program.
The strategy was telegraphed in late January, when Obama cited Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” entitlement reform plan in his talk at the House Republican retreat as a “serious proposal” that he nonetheless opposed. Soon after, the Democratic National Committee pounced on the plan and leading Democrats argued that because Ryan was the ranking GOP member on the Budget Committee, it showed that Republicans wanted to “privatize” Social Security…
…”One of the myths around here is Social Security is in deep trouble,” Reid said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Social Security is not in deep trouble. If we did nothing with it, it would be OK for the next 40 years. Now we want to make sure it is OK for the next 40 years.”…”There can be some tweaks done,” Reid himself said. “Stop trying to frighten people about Social Security.”…
The article continues at The American Spectator.
