Washington, DC — The consultants who helped dismantle John Kerry’s presidential bid have now been hired by a new group, USA Next, to attack the "non-partisan" American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) as the obstructionist, liberal conglomerate it is — and it’s about time.
AARP, which is basically a big business posing as seniors’ advocates as a ruse to sell insurance and other health-related products to seniors, has no idea what’s about to hit them.
Today’s New York Times reports the potent combination of GOP consultants Chris La Civita, Rick Reed from Greg Stevens’s media shop, and Creative Response Concepts — the best pr/advocacy operation in DC run by Greg Mueller, has been retained by USA Next. Any GOP campaign operative who’s been out on the hustings in the past two decades understands the sham nature of AARP, and how they go about surreptitiously collaborating with state-level Democrats to sink Republicans running in Senate, House and Gubernatorial elections.
AARP’s "support" for President Bush’s Medicare prescription drug benefit was simply a tactic permitting AARP to claim they’re bipartisan. AARP represents everything wrong with Washington, and its self-righteous, non-truthful bloviating about how the Bush Social Security reforms will hurt seniors deserves to get hammered.
David Certner, AARP’s director of federal affairs, tells the Times that past efforts to attack AARP have not had "a significant impact in the past." Yet, AARP has never been challenged and attacked like they’re about to be.
Let the TV ads begin.