Thanks to my dad for pointing me to Hesiod’s has a chilling post at The American Street today about what could happen on Social Security if the Dems aren’t careful.

Even if the Democrats and their allies manage to skuttle the dreaded private accounts, Bush has set it up that major Social Security reforms such as increasing the retirement age or eliminating the income cap on FICA are now palatable alternatives. [In fact, Bush has already been hinting he’d support the latter.]

In a vacuum, both proposals were political death. But when compared to private accounts that destroy the fundamental soundness of the Social Security system, they seem like reasonable alternatives.
So here is what will likely happen. Bush will eventually abandon the private accounts idea, and embrace one of the aforementioned alternative “fixes� for Social Security. He will almost certainly get Democratic support for those fixes.

That, in turn, will give many Republicans who are in marginal districts or in Blue States political cover to “save� Social Security by endorsing and voting for, say, removing the income cap on FICA.

Then, VIOLA! — George W. Bush and the Republicans go into the 2006 midterms as the party that “saved Social Security!� Erasing for a generation the inherent advantage Democrats have had on the issue for decades.

This is quite a pickle. On the one hand, you have to wonder if the conservatives would ever really let this happen. Remember, wingers want private accounts not because they’d be a better deal for everyone, in fact quite the opposite. They’d be a better deal for those who deserve it (by competing well in the market). According to the conservative’s strict father morality this is the only legitimate way to distribute the wealth of society. They don’t actually want to save Social Security.

On the other hand, “saving Social Security� would be a huge victory for the Republicans and, as Hesiod points out, it would give them a significant political advantage for a good long time.

If Democrats are to avoid losing on this issue, they will almost certainly need to get in front of the turning tide and claim these common-sense reforms as their own. We’d need to make damn sure every American knows that Bush caved and the Democrats won.

There’s just two problems with that.

First, you don't want to jump the gun or else you face legitimizing Bush's plan as just "one option among many."

Second, I’m just not confident Democratic leaders have the political skill to pull this off. That’s pretty damning, I know, but can you honestly tell me that you know we have the strategists necessary to play this as delicately as it seems we’ll have to? Thought so.

This is the big test for our new generation of leaders – Dean, Reid, and Pelosi.

For the record, I’m more than willing to do my part. Just tell me how.