The NY Times reports that USA Next, a lobbying group founded in 1991 by Richard Viguerie to attack Social Security, has hired a couple of Swift Boat Consultants to attack AARP head on.
"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."
The group claims it will spend up to $10 million dollars in the coming months assailing AARP over its opposition to SS Reform.
More below...
From the NY Times:
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...
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...
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.
Of course establishing ties to the swift boaters doesn't seem to concern USA Next or their President Charlie Jarvis who feels that "it's an honor to be equated with the Swift boat guys." Oh and did I mention Mr. Jarvis was also deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations?
The ads should begin airing in a few weeks.