AASP - National Advertising Campaign -- Cheney Courts Singles

Presidential Campaign
Week of October 16, 2000

Dick Cheney Courts Younger Voters This Week,
and Most of Them Are Unmarried

Dick Cheney, Republican nominee for Vice-President, is campaigning hard this week trying to lure younger, and mostly unmarried, voters to support the Bush-Cheney ticket in the presidential race. Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, will be campaigning in Florida talking to seniors about prescription drug coverage.

Cheney seems to be the one chosen by the Republican Party to reach out to single and unmarried voters. He was the only candidate in the national debates to refer to single voters. Now, according to an Associated Press story released on October 16, 200, Cheney is on the stump, targeting voters between the ages of 20 and 40.

Some 34 percent of Republicans are unmarried as are 44 percent of Democrats. The ratio of single to married Independents is unknown.

According to the Census Bureau, there are 43.5 million adults in the nation between the ages of 20 and 40. A majority of them -- some 55 percent -- are unmarried.

The AP story says that Cheney will push Bush's proposal to let younger workers put about one-sixth of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts that they would own and control.

Cheney has likened these accounts to 401(k) retirement plans that many Americans have through their employers. The Bush campaign contends the accounts will earn a higher rate of return -- perhaps as much as 6 percent annually, based on historical stock market performance, compared with about 2 percent that Social Security earns.

A young worker earning $20,000 annually could retire with more than $100,000 after inflation by investing the money in stocks and bonds, according to campaign estimates.