Excerpted from Latte.
Maybe he's jealous of all the attention Tom Delay is getting, or maybe he wants to be remembered as something other than a stooge on Da Ali G Show. Whatever the reason, Newt Gingrich is baaack. He thinks Bush is doing a piss-poor job selling privatization of Social Security, so he provided some free advice by agency of the Washington Post:
Bush and the Hill need to start over with "a narrowly focused, very directed, very specific campaign" aimed at people under 40.
"I recommend they take a deep breath, step back, launch a new campaign in which the urgency is the fact that every day that you fail to pass it, every young person in America loses the interest for the rest of their lifetime on that day's savings," Gingrich said.
Karl Rove must not be returning his phone calls if Newt has to resort to on-the-record, off-the-reservation commentary. But is his unsolicited advice to fellow Republicans unsound?
The administration privatization strategy is divide and conquer: tell older people that Social Security will persist with no changes, and tell young people that it can't last so it must be changed. The administration has gotten itself into a twist, however, because on one hand Bush has admitted that private accounts won't solve Social Security's long-term solvency problem, but on the other hand his political base requires that private accounts be the "solution." Given this contradiction, you can understand why young people aren't clamoring for private accounts.
What's more, some of them have become convinced that the pension program is a downright sham. For them, private accounts look like a silly half-measure. They have heard that Social Security won't be able to pay them and that the trust fund is full of worthless IOUs. At this point, they're ready to do away with the whole damn thing.
But since some youth are calling for the abolition of the whole program, divide and conquer may prove risky. Young voters don't decide elections - if they did, Kerry would be president. And Republican strategists know that admitting they want to abolish Social Security is a losing proposition.
So, boring as it is, the Gingrich tactic of focusing on the relative amount of interest that private accounts may one day generate may be the best message privatizers have left. Unfortunately for them, it's complicated to explain, easy to refute, and vulnerable to the whims of the stock market. If that's the best they've got left, it's no wonder Mr. Rove doesn't have time to return Newt's phone calls.