Bush Administration plans huge media campaign for SS propgaganda

President Bush's political allies are raising millions of dollars for an election-style campaign to promote private Social Security accounts, as Democrats and Republicans prepare for what they predict will be the most expensive and extensive public policy debate since the 1993 fight over the Clinton administration's failed health care plan.

...from A Big Push On Social Security: Private Accounts Are Bush Priority, by Jim VandeHei, Washington Post , 7 January 2005

Spending on the media blitz may reach $100 million, according to the Post story.

That's enough to put the President's spin on Social Security-killer legislation in the media spotlight for months, crowding out opposing opinions.

Right-wing cable TV and radio are already repeating and amplifing the President's propaganda for free. (Media Matters and other watchdog sites are tracking this phenomenon.) Plans for the paid Republican media campaign apparently come in response to Social Security supporter media plans. VandeHei writes:

Republicans are expediting their fundraising plans after learning that AARP, the influential seniors group that supported Bush's Medicare program but opposes his Social Security designs, will spend $5 million in the first two weeks of this month attacking the president's plan to allow younger workers to invest part of their Social Security contributions in the stock market. AARP plans to run full-page ads in 50 large newspapers to coincide with the return of Congress next week. In one ad, a couple in their forties says, "If we feel like gambling, we'll play the slots."

AARP will be joined by a large number of Democratic groups, including the AFL-CIO, the NAACP and the National Organization for Women. They are coordinating their work with Democratic congressional leaders, all of whom oppose the private investment accounts.

Judging from the way Bush lies and distortions about Kerry became acceptaged as fact during the recent Presidential election campaign, it's reasonable to assume that this kind of media spending will transform Bush's Social Security talking points into basic assumptions of business press coverage of the story. It remains to be seen whether AARP and its allies do a better job than the Kerry Campaign in transforming its talking points into pillars of the debate.