Inside Politics

McCain prods AARP

Republican Sen. John McCain, sitting alongside President Bush at a Social Security event in Albuquerque, N.M., yesterday, threw a few punches at those he says are blocking change.

Mr. McCain took a jab at the AARP, which has been buying television and newspaper advertisements in cities that Mr. Bush is visiting to oppose his idea to let younger workers divert some of their payroll taxes into private investment accounts.

“Some of our friends who are opposing this idea say, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry until 2042.’ We wait until 2042, when we stop paying people Social Security?” the Arizona senator asked.

The Social Security trustees have said 2042 is the year when the trust fund will be empty and the program will have only annual payroll taxes to pay benefits.

“I want to say to our friends in AARP — and they are my friends in AARP — ‘Come to the table with us,’” Mr. McCain said. “We not only have an obligation to seniors, but we have an obligation to future generations of Americans as well.”

Hillary’s decision

“A senior official in the Bush administration says he doesn’t think Hillary Clinton will run for re-election in New York in 2006,” New York Post columnist John Podhoretz writes.

“‘You miss all those votes’ if you try for the party’s presidential nomination while still serving in the Senate, the official said. And, the official added, you don’t want to be put in the position in which John Kerry found himself in 2003, when the Massachusetts senator felt compelled to vote against the $87 billion package of reconstruction and military aid for Iraq and Afghanistan because he was fighting for his life against the anti-war candidate, Howard Dean,” Mr. Podhoretz said.

“Kerry’s vote may have been necessary for his struggle in the Democratic primary, but it was ruinous when it came to the general election. It was, said the Bush official, ‘the gift that kept on giving.’

“You can see why Hillary might be wise not to seek a second term when you consider the extraordinary situation in Washington this past weekend, as Republicans forced votes in both chambers of Congress on the highly polarizing matter of Terri Schiavo’s life and death.

“This is exactly the kind of vote that would and should terrify any Democratic senator looking to expand his or her political base beyond the blue states.”

Backing Wolfowitz

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