As the fight over Social Security intensifies between Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, Democrats are trying their best to remind voters that Romney isn’t exactly the guy to vote for if you want Social Security left the way it is today.
Here’s a new web video from the Florida Democratic party that succinctly makes the party argument:
“Mitt Romney would privatize [Social Security],” the narrator says, “gambling with Social Security in a volatile stock market.”
Democrats think that stance could be a problem for Romney, who’s very clearly trying to cast himself as Social Security’s knight in shining armor against Perry’s harebrained schemes.
Not so, says Team Romney. The Florida Democrats’ web video has Romney all wrong, the campaign told TPM. Sure, he’s ok with adding some private accounts to Social Security — but he would want any program like that to be entirely voluntary. That’s different from calling for the program to be privatized, which the campaign said would mean dumping the whole program into the free market. That idea Romney opposes, his campaign said.
“President Obama and his Democrat machine are continuing their campaign of destruction against Gov. Romney by grossly misrepresenting his views,” Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul told TPM when asked to respond to the Florida Democrats’ web video. “President Obama knows that Gov. Romney is the one candidate with the experience and leadership to make him a one-term president. His liberal allies will say and do anything to distract voters from President Obama’s record of failed leadership.”
But the Democratic attack may have legs despite the Romney pushback. By reaffirming his support for some private accounts, Romney is expressing his interest in fundamentally changing Social Security — which, of course, is exactly what the Democrats are accusing him of doing.
