QUOTH THE CRAVEN--"NEVERMORE" :

Bush's Plan For Social Security Loses Favor : Some GOP Candidates Resist Partial Privatization (Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin, August 13, 2002, Washington Post)

President Bush's campaign to allow Americans to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market is losing support among Republican congressional candidates, as Wall Street's sinking prices reinforce worries about the proposal.

Amid sharp attacks by the Democratic Party, several GOP incumbents and challengers are coming out against Bush's plan for partial privatization of the popular, taxpayer-funded retirement program. Fueling the shift is the stock market's recent plunge, which has reminded voters of the risks of investing in stocks, rather than in other financial instruments that guarantee safe but modest returns.

This seems to be a nearly unteachable lesson, but it is when party members start to retreat from their own ideas that they go down to defeat. Social Security is a particularly good example of an issue where no amount of groveling is going to convince people that the Republicans suddenly favor it, so why not have the courage of your convictions? Once you bail out on reform you just confirm the attacks of the Democrats--that the reform was a bad idea--without gaining any advantage for yourself, because if the question comes down to who's a safer guarantor of the existing system the answer is, of course, your Democrat opponent. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 13, 2002 2:23 PM