Can you believe what the right wing is doing now? They’re picking
a fight with the AARP. The same people who turned “swift-boat” in
to a verb and made up lies about John Kerry has set their sights on the
AARP. Its all so repugnant and disgusting. This
organization represents the interests of senior citizens. Of the people
who have already served their country and done their parts.
Christ, when will people wake up and see the right-wing for who they
really are?! They’re trying to smear an innocent organization who
is just trying to look after the interests of old people.
I heard John Stewart make some joke recently on The Daily Show about
“brown-shirts” — maybe it was someone else. And its really
starting to look that way. If these people can get away with
casting dispersions on the AARP, truly nobody is safe.
Here’s their first advertisement in the opening salvo against the American Association of Retired Persons:
The story is in the New York Times.
A New Target for Advisers to Swift Vets
By GLEN JUSTICE
ASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - Taking its cues from the
success of last year’s Swift boat veterans’ campaign in the presidential race, a
conservative lobbying organization has hired some of the same consultants to
orchestrate attacks on one of President Bush’s toughest opponents in the battle
to overhaul Social Security.
The lobbying group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars into
Republican policy battles, now says it plans to spend as much as $10 million on
commercials and other tactics assailing AARP, the powerhouse lobby opposing the
private investment accounts at the center of Mr. Bush’s plan.
“They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings
accounts,” said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under
secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. “We will
be the dynamite that removes them.”
Though it is not clear how much money USA Next has in hand for the campaign -
Mr. Jarvis will not say, and the group, which claims 1.5 million members, does
not have to disclose its donors - officials say that the group’s annual budget
was more than $28 million last year. The group, a membership organization with
no age requirements for joining, has also spent millions in recent years
vigorously supporting Bush proposals on tax cuts, energy and the Medicare
prescription drug plan.
So far, the groups dueling over Social Security have been relatively tame,
but the plans by USA Next foreshadow what could be a steep escalation in the war
to sway public opinion and members of Congress in the days ahead.
Already, AARP is holding dozens of forums on the issue, has sent mailings to
its 35 million members and has spent roughly $5 million on print advertisements
in major newspapers opposing private accounts. “If we feel like gambling,” some
advertisements said, “we’ll play the slots.”
AARP is spending another $5 million on a new print advertising campaign
beginning this week.
To help set USA Next’s strategy, the group has hired Chris LaCivita, an
enthusiastic former marine who advised Swift Vets and P.O.W.’s for Truth,
formerly known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, on its media campaign and
helped write its potent commercials. He earned more than $30,000 for his work,
campaign finance filings show.
Officials said the group is also seeking to hire Rick Reed, a partner at
Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, a firm that was hired by Swift Vets and was
paid more than $276,000 to do media production, records show.
For public relations, USA Next has turned to Creative Response Concepts, a
Virginia firm that represented both Swift Vets - the company was paid more than
$165,000 - and Regnery Publishing, the publisher of “Unfit for Command,” a book
about Senator John Kerry’s military service whose co-author was John E. O’Neill,
one of the primary leaders of Swift Vets.
Swift Vets captured headlines for weeks in last year’s presidential race,
when it spent millions of dollars on incendiary commercials attacking Senator
Kerry’s war record. Because federal law prohibits outside groups from
coordinating with presidential campaigns during elections, the organization came
under fire when it was revealed that a lawyer for Mr. Bush’s campaign was also
advising Swift Vets.
Mr. Bush criticized groups like Swift Vets last year, and his campaign kept
its distance from the groups’ attacks on Mr. Kerry. In policy battles like the
one looming over Social Security, though, there is no prohibition against
coordination. Several huge business lobbies, like the Business Roundtable, have
become closely linked to Mr. Bush’s plans for Social Security and have assembled
coalitions to promote the proposals across the country.
In the case of USA Next, the group and the White House say they are not
working together. Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said the administration
was familiar with the group and has interacted with it on issues in the past,
but said that it had no input on its current efforts. USA Next says it has taken
pains to disassociate itself from the administration, even declining to join the
large lobbying coalitions the White House is working with to pass Social
Security legislation.
“We don’t like asking anyone for permission to do anything,” Mr. Jarvis said.
“We totally support the president’s boldness on Social Security, but we don’t
coordinate with the White House or the Hill. We know the people at the White
House agree with us and we agree with them.”
.
USA Next has been portraying AARP as a liberal organization out of step with
Republican values, and is now trying to discredit its stance on Social Security.
USA Next’s campaign has involved appearances by its leaders, including Art
Linkletter, its national chairman, on Fox News and various television programs.
Its commercials are to be broadcast around the country in coming weeks.
AARP, the largest organization representing middle-aged and older Americans,
is considered a major obstacle to Mr. Bush’s Social Security plan in part
because of its size and influence with the elderly. Though it is officially
nonpartisan, and it stood beside the administration to help pass a prescription
drug bill in 2003, many Republicans have long characterized the group as
left-leaning.
Officials at AARP say that their organization has weathered attacks and
allegations of partisanship over the years and that they were not overly
concerned about the current barrage.
“I don’t ever want to see someone attack us, but we haven’t found they had a
significant impact in the past,” said David Certner, the group’s director of
federal affairs.
One USA Next official predicted that this time around, the campaign would be
so aggressive that the White House might not to want to associate with it.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the White House doesn’t want
anything to do with a group that is attacking the AARP,” the official said,
adding, “We are not going to drag them into this mess.”
At one point recently, USA Next was also talking to Terry Nelson, the former
national political director of Mr. Bush’s campaign who is a partner at Dawson
McCarthy Nelson Media, about working as a consultant. But Mr. Nelson was already
employed by Compass, a coalition of major trade associations working with the
White House to support Mr. Bush’s plan, and that stopped the deal. “They wanted
to maintain absolute independence,” Mr. Nelson said. “They felt it was a
conflict for them.”
Mr. Jarvis said the group’s goal is to peel off one million members from
AARP, by presenting itself as a conservative, free-market alternative. He says
USA Next surveys show that more than 37 percent of AARP members call themselves
Republicans.
“We are going to take them on in hand-to-hand combat,” said Mr. Jarvis, who
is biting in his remarks about AARP, calling the group “stodgy, overweight,
bureaucratic and out of touch.”
Formerly known as the United Seniors Association, USA Next was founded in
1991 by Richard Viguerie, a Republican pioneer and mastermind of direct
mailings, who raised millions of dollars from older Americans using
solicitations that sent alarming messages about Social Security. In 1992, there
were allegations that the group was used as a device to enrich other companies
owned by Mr. Viguerie, drawing criticism from watchdog groups and Democratic
lawmakers.
Mr. Jarvis, who joined the group in 2001, said he knew little about the
allegations, and Mr. Viguerie could not be reached for comment. The group
persevered and has grown in the years since then. The group spent years
primarily working with direct mail before changing to a model that emphasized
the use of heavy television and radio advertising to get its message across,
fueled by millions of dollars from wealthy donors, trade associations and
companies that share its views.
Mr. Jarvis said donors have included food, nutrition, energy and
pharmaceutical companies, which have given money to support various advertising
campaigns.
In previous years, and often during elections, the money was used to saturate
the airwaves with advertisements. In 2002, for example, the group relied partly
on money from the pharmaceutical industry to spend roughly $9 million on
television commercials and mailings supporting Republican prescription drug
legislation and the lawmakers who backed it.
The group spent more money than any other interest group on House races that
year, according to a study by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, and drew
charges from Democrats that it was a stealth campaign by the pharmaceutical
industry to support House Republicans. The group denied the allegations. Critics
contended that the group was a front for corporate special interests. In a 2002
report, Public Citizen’s Congress Watch denounced it, calling its leadership
“hired guns.”
In 2003 and 2004, USA Next was again heavily represented, spending roughly
$20 million, according to the group’s own numbers. It sponsored more than 19,800
television and radio advertisements last year alone.
To USA Next, the battle lines have already been drawn, and it does not shy
away from comparisons to the veterans’ campaign against Senator Kerry. “It’s an
honor to be equated with the Swift boat guys,” Mr. Jarvis said.
Sphere: Related Content
Tags: Uncategorized by Private Idaho
No Comments »
