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O'Donnell ad asks voters for forgiveness

Says he wrote attack on Social Security as 'know-it-all kid'

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 22, 2006 at midnight

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Rick O'Donnell will launch a television ad today apologizing for writing that Social Security should be abolished when he was a 24-year-old "know-it-all kid."

In the ad, he also tells voters that Ed Perlmutter has proposed cutting Social Security benefits and raising taxes - a claim Perlmutter called untruthful.

"I was wrong years ago, but Ed Perlmutter is wrong today," O'Donnell says in the ad.

Perlmutter said the ad shows his opponent is getting killed over an issue crucial to voters in suburban Denver's 7th Congressional District.

O'Donnell, 36, has caught constant fire from Democrats, who have hammered him over his now-infamous essay, "For Freedom's Sake, Eliminate Social Security."

The Republican wrote the opinion piece 11 years ago while editing a newspaper for Newt Gingrich's Progress & Freedom Foundation.

He shared the essay with the Rocky Mountain News in July and has spent much time since then explaining that he now wants to fix, not "slay" what he once called "the largest government 'entitlement' program of all, Social Security."

O'Donnell says he supports personal accounts and wants to fix Social Security without increasing taxes or cutting benefits. He rebuts Democratic claims that he now wants to privatize Social Security.

He launches his ad with less than seven weeks left in his campaign "to set the record straight, because the truth does matter when it comes to this issue," said his spokesman, Jonathan Tee.

In the 30-second spot, O'Donnell says: "Ed Perlmutter is trying to scare you. The truth is he's actually proposed cutting Social Security benefits and increasing taxes."

O'Donnell points to an online AARP survey in which Perlmutter agreed with the bipartisan retiree group's position supporting "a balanced Social Security plan for guaranteed benefits" and opposing "using Social Security taxes for private accounts."

In its literature, AARP explains that its plan "balances additional contributions from higher income workers with modest adjustments in future benefits."

Perlmutter therefore wants to cut benefits and raise taxes, O'Donnell reasons.

"Rick is showing just how out of touch he is with seniors by attacking AARP," Perlmutter spokesman Scott Chase said.

O'Donnell has been endorsed by the Club for Growth, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and Citizens Against Government Waste, each of which supports, respectively, "personal accounts," "private accounts" or "partial privatization and personalization of Social Security."

"All of these Republican groups have endorsed him because he uses the same code language these guys use for privatization," Chase said.

O'Donnell is spending approximately $100,000 on the ad, called "The Truth Matters." It was created by Dawson, McCarthy, Nelson Media and will run for about seven days.

A mailer also will go out asking voters to forgive him for his former position and making fun of what a "know-it-all-kid" he used to be.

"Ed Perlmutter wants the things I said when I was young to destroy me now," it says. "He wants you to hate me . . . and not to forgive the misguided thoughts of a kid. He wants you to ignore the things I have to say now.

"But I ask you to forgive . . . and to listen."

He explains that helping his mother sort through her Social Security benefits has helped him see the value of the program.

Perlmutter, meanwhile, will record this weekend's national radio address for the Democratic Party today. It will focus on Social Security and air on Saturday at 11:06 a.m.

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