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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

AARP Leads With Wallet In Fight Over Social Security
Bush's Plan Faces Formidable Foe

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A01

In the punch-for-punch debate over Social Security, AARP is working hard to 
keep the White House on the ropes.

When President Bush arrives in Iowa today to talk up his private-accounts 
proposal, the senior citizens group plans to counter him with two news 
conferences, the release of a national poll, full-page newspaper 
advertisements and commercials on radio and television. Over this week and 
last, AARP, the nation's largest lobby, will have spent more than $5 
million on ads attacking the president's Social Security plan -- nearly 
three times as much as all the supporters of his proposal put together. 
That's just for starters.

Every state that has a swing-vote senator will have AARP forums, which have 
been drawing about 300 people each. And every time a member of Congress 
holds a town meeting, AARP volunteers are dispatched there to protest the 
president's plan for individual accounts.

"We're going to do this as long as it takes," said William D. Novelli, 
AARP's chief executive. "We will put just about everything we have into it."

No organization has more tools or more money to wage such a battle. So both 
its friends and adversaries agree: AARP holds the key to how or whether 
Social Security will be restructured this year. "It will be very difficult 
to do anything without AARP's support," said Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), 
chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "And it would be a heck of a lot 
easier if they came along."

AARP's 35 million membership base is 10 times the size of the National 
Rifle Association's, and its $800 million budget is five times that of the 
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's biggest business association. In 
number of members, AARP is surpassed only by the Roman Catholic Church.

The rest of the story is at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11076-2005Mar29.html