Can Obama Get Older
Americans On His Side?

By MURRAY POLNER

Having just turned 80, I know full well what the poet Carolyn Wells meant when she wrote, “Old age with fears and ills is rife.” But now I think Archie Bunker said it best about old-timers. “Edith,” he barked to his wife, “you gotta know this about me. I hate change.”

Ordinarily, that might explain why pollsters tell us that a majority of seniors currently oppose Barack Obama. A Pew Research Center poll in July found that voters 65 and older favored John McCain over Obama by 44-37 percent. Obviously, we older Americans are leery of the unknown. And change is Obama’s brand. His promise to fundamentally transform the country may threaten skittish seniors. Better to stand with the known than risk the unknown. “Change” brings with it new and unnerving trends and technology. All the new hip language, the Internet and Digital revolutions, unmarried men and women living together and gay and lesbian marriages tend to unsettle the old.

Yet seniors have many, many reasons to fear the status quo. Retired workers worry that their pensions are being gutted and their health benefits slashed. The elderly disabled are threatened by the refusal of many doctors to accept Medicare and Medicaid. We are also confronted with grave economic problems, soaring transportation and commodity prices as well as skyrocketing taxes. One senior recently told Newsday, “It’s so hard because I’m retired, so high-price cuts of meat like lamb and steak, I had to cut down.” Many people on fixed incomes now make similar cuts.

Then, too, all of us face two endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and hear talk of military operations against Iran and a renewed Cold War against nuclear-armed Russia.

Given the nation’s dire problems, are the anti-Obama elderly suffering from a collective memory lapse? After all, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal created Social Security. Later Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” provided us with Medicare and Medicaid. But today’s elderly seem moreinfluenced by Ronald Reagan’s presidency. While Reagan retained many vital social welfare programs, his administration consistently derided government’s domestic programs as suspect and unnecessary.

So, is there anything Obama can do to convince more of the elderly to back him?

Obama’s pick of 66-year-old Joe Biden as his vice presidential pick is a start, but the Democratic ticket must propose programs that will reassure anxious older Americans that our pensions are safe and our health insurance secure. Obama needs to speak out against our addiction to war since it is our grandchildren who will be called on to fight -- not chicken hawk pundits and stay- at- home foreign policy “experts.” He needs to remind us that the trillion dollars being spent on our two wars means that less money is available at home for programs that serve seniors.

Consider the fact that President Bush’s last budget called for a 10.6 percent reduction inMedicare payments to doctors, some of whom have suggested it might lead them to refuse to accept new old and disabled patients. The budget sought further cuts to Medicare, totaling $91 billion over the next five years. Obama should say “no,” and say it loudly.

To win us over, Obama must stand for the kind of profound change that shows us that, as President, he will lend a hand to seniors. There are, for example, 23 federal housing programs supposedly serving the elderly. But the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in2004 that most of the housing assistance programs “are not designed to provide supportive services for the elderly.” That remains pretty much the same today, and Obama should seize this shameful situation as a campaign issue. We also worry about the price of prescription drugs because many Medicare-based drug plans still do not cover all the costs. And wouldn’t it be great if Obama vowed to develop a nursing home system that won’t bankrupt the elderly or their children?

In short, we need to know how Obama and his key advisors will meet the great, still unknowable, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Murray Polner’s writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Monthly, Newsday, Nation, Commonweal, and the History News Network. Polner recently co-edited “We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now.” (Basic Books)