Aarp Under Attack From Many Angles

Critics of the American Association of Retired Persons are calling for a reordering of priorities by the nation’s largest lobby.

They want the AARP to put less energy into peddling products to its 33 million members and more effort into peddling influence on behalf of older Americans.

Senior Times newspaper publisher James Osman of Spokane says the AARP must get involved, communicate with members, stand for something, or be prepared to stand aside.

A half dozen other seniors advocacy groups are gaining membership and strength, reports Osman, and AARP’s pre-eminence is at risk. As evidence of vulnerability, Osman points to Seniors Coalition attacks on the AARP’s integrity and purpose. More on this later.

Frank Yuse, 5th congressional district chairman of AARP/Vote, the lobby’s voter educational arm, is badgering the organization’s national office for a re-examination of its nonpartisan posture. AARP refuses to take sides.

But when issues of vital importance to seniors become pawns in partisan politics, Yuse thinks the lobby may have no recourse but to back one party or another, or AARP members lose by default.

Clint Watkins of Spokane, a 15-year member, comments, “I’d love to go to the meetings and holler about the parties and their priorities, but hell, if AARP can’t take a stand, what good are they?” Meantime, U.S. Senator John McCain rips the AARP for lining up with “liberals” (translate that Democrats) although members generally are “more conservative” (Republicans).

Fellow Senate Republican Alan Simpson charges the AARP has so abused its tax-exempt status in becoming a “big, big business” that Congress may act to rein in its product endorsements and sales activities.

And finally there is Vern Westgate of Coeur d’Alene who complains that for months he has been “trying to resign from the AARP” and he can’t. They keep mailing sales pitches for products and propaganda extolling “big government programs,” and they won’t stop. “They are out of touch, unresponsive, completely out of control,” he says.

But probably no individual or group is more rabidly anti-AARP than the Seniors Coalition, which suffers no qualms about partisan gamesmanship. The coalition, closely identified with the GOP agenda, lobbies openly for conservative causes.

“Are you a member of AARP?” the Seniors Coalition inquired in a mailing to my home last year. “If your answer is ‘yes,’ you should know that: “Last year AARP spent millions of dollars lobbying for Bill Clinton’s government-run health care plan. Though AARP’s own survey showed that 82 percent of its members opposed it, AARP backed the radical plan that would have brought rationing, waiting lines and outright denial of medical care to older Americans.”

Chief lobbyist Jake Hansen next hit me up for a contribution to help him and the GOP protect my interests.

But the Seniors Coalition has grave problems of its own to overcome. A recent dispatch by the Senior Wire reported that top management of the 2-million-member lobby had “collapsed,” raising questions of survivability.

The Virginia Supreme Court returned control of the coalition to a board of directors ousted a few years ago following a scandal that reportedly sent a coalition founder to prison. Restoration of the original board resulted in resignation of chief lobbyist Hansen and most of the staff, according to reports.

However, this week the lobby’s national office went to great lengths to convince me that the organization continues intact and is hard at work on Capitol Hill.

The coalition has hired Steve Symmes, lobbyist and former Republican senator from Idaho, as chief adviser.

One thing hasn’t changed: The top brass continues to attack the AARP.

“AARP says that it is an advocacy organization for older Americans,” says the coalition’s new chief executive officer, Thair Phillips. “It should conduct itself as such, and stay away from commercial ventures that make it seem more like the Disney Co. licensing Mickey Mouse, or the National Basketball Association granting rights to the Chicago Bulls logo.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes on retirement issues each Sunday. He can be reached with ideas for future columns at 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review