STOP SCARING MY GRANDMA!

Had any doubt that the Democrats are in trouble? Now it’s official.

Realizing that national security is only going to hurt them if they keep bringing it up, this week Democrats went to a “security” issue, which they know they can use to their advantage. Social Security.

For weeks the Democrats campaigned using the mind-boggling illogical one-two punch of simultaneously attempting to convince us that President Bush was needlessly trying to instill a fear of terrorism in us but that we were no safer than we were before 9/11, When the public saw through this absurdity and Democrats saw the closing gap in the opinion polls, they decided to whip out their scare tactic of choice.

George Bush wants to kill your grandma!

You laugh, but it was only a year and a half ago that the DNC ran a video on its website which featured a cartoon in which the President hurls an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs.

So on Saturday, in their response to the President’s weekly radio address, the Democrats tried to scare themselves up some more votes.

Ed Perlmutter, the Democratic nominee for an open Colorado house seat, the race for which is considered one of the closest in the nation, gave the response and got right down to business terrifying old people, and he used Social Security as the Boogeyman.

“The GOP scheme would threaten senior citizens who worked hard, played by the rules, and simply seek to live their golden years with some financial stability and security.”

FLASHBACK

When the president tried to save Social Security, shortly after his election victory, by proposing that younger workers have the option of investing a small part of their benefits into private accounts, Democrats jumped at the chance to politicize the issue.

Their strategy was threefold.

First deny that there was any problem with Social Security. This flew in the face of President Clinton’s 1998 State of the Union speech where he encouraged congress to use the budget surplus to “Save Social Security first,” but who cares? Clinton was gone and they were desperate to hand Bush a loss after his humiliation of John Kerry several months earlier.

Next, refuse to debate the issue or offer any proposals of their own. (Not offering any alternatives is another long standing Democratic strategy. For more on this, see Iraq.)

Finally, throw Grandma down the stairs. Scare the living crap (perhaps literally) out of the group who votes with the most frequency in this nation in order to kill the proposal. That’s where Perlmutter picked up the ball.

What the Democrats know, and what they didn’t want Grandma to know was that the president’s Social Security plan had absolutely no effect on anyone currently above the age of 55. Zero, Zip, Nada. So when Perlmutter says:

“The GOP scheme would threaten senior citizens who worked hard, played by the rules, and simply seek to live their golden years with some financial stability and security.”
Or

“My opponent and his Republican friends in Washington must be fans of the TV show Jeopardy. Because that's the position they'll put seniors in if they succeed in their plan to privatize Social Security.”

He’s simply lying.

Not only that, but he managed to alienate Jeopardy fans across the country. He’s lucky that Democrats tend to prefer Wheel of Fortune.

Forget for a moment that the Democrats refused to even debate a proposal for Social Security reform, which might help ensure that the program still exists when I’m eligible for benefits, and could also increase recipients benefits tenfold if they opted (not forced) opted into the program.

But they didn’t hesitate for a millisecond before they threw Bush right onto the “third rail” of American politics. And they lied to their own mothers in order to do it.

So now, desperate not to let a silly issue like terrorism muck up their plans of making Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House, Democrats send out this rookie Perlmutter to do the dirty work to make sure that the elderly are shaking in their boots, terrified of a plan that is obviously so terrible that even debating it could cause seniors to end up in the poor house.

Perlmutter also gave us this gem:

“In 1995, my opponent advocated abandoning seniors……”

Really? Abandoning them where? The desert? Sea World? Downtown Detroit? Was his opponent going to take every senior citizen in Colorado and put them in a home? Or perhaps GOP candidate Rick O’Donnell advocated getting all of the seniors, putting them in a giant rocket and shooting them to the moon. That would solve the Social Security problem pretty quickly. Maybe you should elaborate a little on this one Ed.

“….and today he is abandoning the truth.”

Oh, he’s abandoning the truth. Got it.

Funny how you just told us that Republicans are going to hurt seniors by privatizing Social Security, with a plan that doesn’t even effect today’s seniors, and yet it’s your opponent who’s “…abandoning the truth.”

What will the Democrats tell seniors next? I can’t say. But it’s obvious that they are willing to go to great lengths in order to scare seniors in regards to the Social Security issue.

Next week we’ll hear that if Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security passes, Matlock will no longer be aired in syndication. Democrat’s will be in the majority for years to come if they can convince elderly voters of that one.

So how can Republicans combat this latest round of misleading Democratic rhetoric on Social Security? Unfortunately, they can’t. And not just because “Ed Perlmutter Lied, My Grandma Cried” is way too long to fit on a bumper sticker.

The Democrats 30 year track record of politicizing Social Security will not end until Social Security itself ends. Then all responsibility for the collapse of the program will deservedly lie with them, due to their desire to use the program for political gain rather than a desire to actually fix it.

As for Perlmutter, those who are truly concerned about the future of Social Security can only hope that he loses and loses big. Maybe then, Democrats will finally learn that they can’t scare their way into office, by telling tall tales about the big bad Republican wolf, who wants to utterly destroy your grandma’s life.

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