Social Security stalwarts

From The Wall Street Journal

We keep reading that all across America this election year Republicans are running away from Social Security reform like scalded dogs. Well, politicians lacking courage isn't news. The bigger story is that some candidates are tackling the issue head on, rebutting the usual demagoguery and so far surviving to tell about it.

It's true that Democrats are using Social Security as their main campaign club. Seniors turn out to vote more than young people do, and in midterm elections they make up a higher share of the vote than in Presidential years. So in the wake of Enron especially, Democrats figure that even the hint of personal retirement accounts, much less full Social Security "privatization," is a killer political app. Everywhere this year some Democrat is warning that Republicans want to "pick the pocket" of seniors, or favor a "risky stock market scheme," or can't wait to dump America's grannies into snowbanks.

It isn't working

The only problem is that it isn't working, at least not in races where Republicans are willing to fight back. Take the 15th district of eastern Pennsylvania, a state with the largest share of seniors after Florida. Democratic challenger Ed O'Brien has been flogging Social Security for months, but he's been getting nowhere against Republican Pat Toomey. The GOP incumbent defends private retirement accounts as a way to save the system without raising taxes and seems on track to win his third term.

The same is true of Anne Northrup, a three-term Republican who holds a traditionally Democratic seat in Louisville, Kentucky. The AFL-CIO is pounding her for supporting "privatization," but Ms. Northrup isn't bending. In one TV spot, she tells seniors that, "The scare tactics aren't true." She then explains her own position in three simple statements: Don't cut benefits. Don't raise the retirement age. And allow younger workers to have personal accounts. Ms. Northrup is comfortably ahead, and deservedly so.

Over in the Senate, the bellwether Social Security race is for the open seat in North Carolina. Democrat Erskine Bowles, a multimillionaire and former Clinton chief of staff, advertises himself as a pro-business candidate fond of bipartisanship. But on Social Security he's running as Ted Kennedy without the nuance, claiming that Republican Elizabeth Dole wants to cut benefits and would ruin the system.

Mrs. Dole supported private accounts in her 2000 Presidential run, and she isn't backing away this year. She advertises her own "Retirement Security Plan" that dares to tell the truth about Social Security's "crisis of long-term insolvency." The U.S., she says, needs a system "that guarantees a secure retirement not only for today's beneficiaries, but also for our children and grandchildren." That kind of talk is supposed to be suicidal in a state where one of every four voters next week is likely to be age 65 or older. But her campaign has found the Democratic Achilles' heel, which is that they have no plan at all for entitlement reform. On the stump, Mrs. Dole explains her plan and then says, "here's Erskine Bowles's plan" while holding up a blank sheet of paper. She sometimes adds, "Oh, there it is," flipping the paper to expose another blank side.

Voters get the point, which is that Social Security will be in worse trouble without reform. Seniors may want their own benefits preserved, but most are public spirited enough to want something for their grandkids too. They're willing to listen to a politician who tells the truth and explains the issue.

Lessons of 2000

That was also one of the lessons of 2000, when George W. Bush dared to embrace personal investment accounts. He also survived, and even gained stature for showing leadership on a difficult subject. That was before Enron, of course, and this year many Republicans have abandoned their reform principles.

House campaign chairman Tom Davis has been the leader of this retreat, and no doubt he'll claim to have saved the day if the GOP keeps its majority. But he'll be making it that much harder for Mr. Bush to achieve one of his major Presidential goals. Moreover, his bragging won't be true: If Democrats can't regain the House amid a mediocre economy and ugly corporate scandals, then maybe private Social Security accounts aren't deadly after all.

Which is all the more reason to praise the likes of Mrs. Dole and Congressman Lindsey Graham, who is running on personal accounts for an open Senate seat in South Carolina.

If they prevail, and as of now they're leading, they'll show other Republicans that they can also have the courage of their convictions and prosper. The country will be better for it.