Finally this week, after months of bad news, Republicans have something to be happy about on the Social Security front.

No, not on private accounts; they’re still dead as a doornail. And with the president’s approval rating on Social Security hovering down near 30 percent, there’s not much chance of anything he supports on this vital issue finding its way onto the law books.

But there was good news nonetheless.

This week, Americans United to Protect Social Security (AUPSS) came close to ramping back its field operations and laying off a good part of its staff because it was having such a tough time raising money.

Gerry McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees came through and bailed the group out with another infusion of cash. So, for the moment, AUPSS will be able to keep up its nationwide harassment of Republican lawmakers who won’t come clean on whether or not they support phasing out Social Security.

But the fact that the group’s finances ever got to such a parlous state points to a much deeper problem for Democrats and something Republican strategists will no doubt look at with well-founded relief.

AUPSS was organized earlier this year as an umbrella organization bringing together various Democratic-leaning groups to fight the president’s plan to phase out Social Security and replace it with private accounts. It’s been far from the only group working the Social Security fight. But it’s played a key role in coordinating the effort across the country, tracking the positions of members of Congress, staging rallies and all the rest that goes into a full-court political campaign.

And it’s hardly a surprise that such an outfit would have been organized. Social Security is a defining issue for Democrats — one that unites them as no other, as their unparalleled unity on the issue clearly shows. It affects at least as many people as the fight for abortion rights, gun control and various environmental issues as well as the related and ongoing issue of federal judicial appointments.

But those groups rarely go begging for money like the prime Social Security advocacy group apparently is.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to set up a fight over which is more important — Social Security or abortion rights or any other issue. Each is important, and each deserves financial support. But none of these other causes or issues would be forced to start laying off staff just as they’re beginning to win the fight, certainly not when the president has made abolishing the program his signature legislative priority.

Now, you might say that the main danger has passed on Social Security. And there’s at least some truth in that contention. But one might more aptly note that, unlike any of these other issues, it is one on which Dems truly have the whip hand like no other.

What’s more, unlike these other issues, support for Social Security cuts heavily into red states where Democrats must make gains if they are again to be the nation’s majority party. Even if Social Security privatization is dead legislatively (and I’m not certain of that), it’s certainly not dead politically — unless Democrats want to do president an immense favor and do it in for him. Indeed, now is the time to kick into high gear for next year’s elections.

So, why is this happening?

Two answers, it seems to me. The first is the systemic imbecility afflicting the money and organizational infrastructure of the Democratic Party. Social Security isn’t in the headlines as much as it was six months ago or three months ago. And the immediate peril to the program isn’t as great as it was in the spring. But given the political and substantive stakes involved, someone should be making sure this group’s funding doesn’t dry up on the eve of the 2006 election cycle. It’s one more example of the essentially reactive nature of the Democratic Party today and its inability to think in anything but short-term ways.

The second and more troubling answer, however, has to do with class. This is at root a middle-class issue, and it just doesn’t have a clear funding constituency within the Democratic Party. Issues that mean a lot to people living in families with combined incomes of more than $100,000 a year don’t go begging like this.

There are plenty of Democrats who just won’t stop wringing their hands about why it is that so many middle- and lower-middle-class voters vote Republican when it’s Democrats who are defending their economic interests. Maybe those voters know something a lot of Democrats aren’t quite willing to admit to themselves.

Marshall is editor of talkingpointsmemo.com. His column appears in The Hill each week.
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