“In 1962, I covered Congress as a reporter for a news bureau that included the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, the Columbia (S.C.) State, the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, WFLA-(Tampa) TV, 50,000-watt radio stations WDBO (Orlando) and WGBS (Miami) to name a few of the more than two dozen media outlets.

From that perspective, I witnessed one of the most lopsided presidential victories ever. Democrat Lyndon Johnson beat Republican Barry Goldwater, 486 electoral votes to 52 with a popular vote of 43 million to 27 million. LBJ carried 44 states and the District of Columbia. As you might imagine, the Johnson landslide defeated many Republican members of the House and Senate, as well.

I recall one byproduct of that landslide was Republican leaders searching for a grass-roots Republican National Committee chairman, settling on Ohio GOP Chairman Ray Bliss, who helped turn around the stunning Goldwater defeat of 1964 into a dramatic realignment victory in 1968 when Richard Nixon won back the White House by handily defeating both Democrat Hubert Humphrey and Independent George Wallace.

Forty years on, in both the 2006 and 2008 cycles, after mounting losses in the House and Senate and the White House, it appears time for Republicans to find another grass-roots leader who can perform similar magic. There are several able-bodied state chairmen eyeing the Republican National Committee reins.

But wait. The RNC already has a proven first-rate leader in its current chairman from my home state of Kentucky, Mike Duncan. Look at his record. A staggering $400 million-plus dollars raised. For my 50 years on the political scene, his fund-raising prowess brings to mind the words of a prominent Democrat in the 1960s, Jesse Unruh, who famously said “money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Mike Duncan, in the strong headwind years Republicans have just faced, has surely provided the “mother’s milk of politics” for Republican candidates.

Mike’s ability to raise money is extraordinary; while he has gracefully credited what he calls his “superb finance team,” it is clear to me Mr. Duncan, should he decide to run for another term, may yet be able to turn the current gloom and doom of the GOP around just as his predecessor, Ray Bliss, did in the mid ’60s. Indeed, if one of the primary barometers for a chairman’s success is the real political capital raised, Mr. Duncan is in good standing. In less than two years, I reiterate, Mr. Duncan has raised a record total of more than $400 million for Republican causes and candidates.

I also note with appreciation that Mr. Duncan is working to be certain these funds raised will not be compromised by campaign finance reform that goes by the increasingly unpopular title of McCain-Feingold. Under Mr. Duncan, the RNC has recently filed lawsuits in the District of Columbia and Louisiana challenging, respectively, the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act’s ban on national parties raising and spending nonfederal dollars and the constitutionality of political party coordinated expenditure limits. The chairman has said, “The campaign finance restrictions infringe on the First Amendment’s core: political speech and association. The RNC must have the ability to support state candidates, coordinate expenditures with our candidates, and truly engage in political activity on a national level. The RNC has operated under and complied with these provisions of the law since their enactment, and as applied it is unconstitutional.” We strongly concur.

Mike Duncan is an exceptional leader with a long and distinguished history of working behind the scenes for his country and his party. The Republican Party will be well-served if the RNC members reward Mike Duncan for an extraordinarily good job in an unusually bad time by electing him chairman for another term.

His amazing fund-raising ability to provide the “mother’s milk of politics” is just what the doctor ordered for an ailing GOP.

Only in Washington could a supposedly self-funded government program that’s operating in the red and facing insolvency walk away from an opportunity to save billions of dollars.

Yet that’s exactly what Medicare, the health care program for seniors, is doing: shamefully ignoring an opportunity to save billions by forcing retirees who want to pay for their own medical coverage to accept Medicare.

So insistent is Washington that all seniors enroll in the financially ailing government program that Social Security Administration officials have said that anyone who refuses will be denied their Social Security benefits.

This is an outrage.

In late March, the Medicare trustees told us just how sick this program is. In 2007, the total bill for Medicare was $432 billion. Next year’s expenditures are expected to exceed $500 billion – one-sixth of the entire federal budget, excluding the recently passed financial bailout package. These costs will spike in coming years as the 77 million baby boomers retire and start drawing benefits.

The system, in short, is a catastrophe. That’s why Washington continues to crack down on expenses by limiting reimbursements to providers, and why providers have been abandoning the program. If honesty were the coin of the realm we’d call this rationing, but Washington rarely calls anything by its real name.

To meet its obligations, Medicare will have limited options: It can cut costs by limiting the services available to enrollees (rationing); it can cut costs by reducing payments to providers; it can increase premiums, or it can dip into tax revenues, the direction it’s going now.

But with the financial bailout Congress recently passed, the economy in the tank and the ratio of workers to retirees decreasing (that is, fewer workers paying payroll taxes and more retired workers drawing benefits) the money isn’t there.

You would think Medicare officials would be happy that some small percentage of those eligible for benefits would want to “opt out.”

Instead, they are forcing them in – threatening, according to a lawsuit filed recently in Federal District Court in Washington, to deny Social Security retirement benefits to any senior who refuses to sign up for Medicare or withdraws from the program.

If just 1% of retirees choose not to participate in Medicare, costs would decline by about $1.5 billion in the first year, increasing to $3.4 billion a year by 2017 and even more every year after that for decades to come as the “boomers” age. All Americans should be outraged that Washington would use coercive policies to force people into a supposedly voluntary program.

With 44 million people enrolled in Medicare today and baby boomers moving into the system in 2011 – when those born in 1946 will become eligible – the situation only gets worse.

Allowing individuals to forgo Medicare without fear of losing other benefits is the only reasonable option.

Arlington, VA — The head of a senior citizens’ organization called an attack ad aimed at Senator Elizabeth Dole “rude and frankly insulting to real senior citizens.”

“I know Senator Dole personally and she is a classy young lady,” said 60 Plus President Jim Martin. “Exaggerating her age by 20 years in an attempt to question her competence and dedication is an attack on real seniors and is insulting to North Carolina voters. Playing the age card is bad enough, fibbing in order to play it is an outrage.”

“It is also hypocritical in the extreme to launch an age attack while saying nothing about the 25 Democratic members of Congress who are many years Senator Dole’s senior,” Martin said.

Martin referred to the Hagan/DSCC ad which touts a so-called study which includes 50 (and 25 Democratic) legislators who are between 72 and 90 years old.

“Mrs. Hagan should apologize to North Carolinians for fouling the airwaves with this kind of attack and have this Democratic committee take down the ad,” Martin said.

“Coincidentally, 60 Plus rates Senator Dole as a highly effective leader — primarily for her work on repealing the death tax and working to save Social Security for future generations.”

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“Arlington, VA – The 60 Plus Association today endorsed the “Pickens Plan,” an energy campaign launched earlier this week by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, to offset foreign oil imports with domestic energy sources.

“For too long America’s politicians have pushed off our energy problems, vowing to deal with them in the future, said Jim Martin, president of 60 Plus. “Well , to paraphrase Hall of Fame football coach George Allen, ‘the future is now’ and if our country doesn’t do something now there won’t be much of an America to pass down to the next generation.”

Pickens says that over the next 10 years, America will send $10 trillion overseas to purchase foreign oil– the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. To reverse this trend and avert an economic catastrophe, Pickens proposes the massive expansion of domestic energy resources– namely natural gas and wind– to displace foreign oil. Martin continued with this observation, “Seniors are scared of increased reliance upon unstable foreign imports; We must address the instability of increasing reliance upon foreign imports of oil from unstable countries that might cut off future supplies.”

In addition to its endorsement of the Pickens Plan the 60 Plus Association believes it’s not good for this country to place limits on domestic exploration, whether offshore Virginia, offshore Alaska, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or opening interior lands presently off-limits (but that we know without question are absolutely rich deposits of oil or natural gas). “It’s our belief,” said Martin, “we should open these vast American assets in an environmentally sound manner at a time when international supplies are so uncertain. We must, for the sake of our people, for the security of our country, wean ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil supplies via a combination of the Pickens Plan and domestic oil exploration.”

Martin pointed out that the current energy crisis has affected seniors with higher prices at the pump and skyrocketing food bills. It has also hurt Social Security, he said, by shrinking the pool of American workers putting money into the program and by forcing the government to borrow more from Social Security to fund other programs.

“Our country needs action, not political soundbites and empty promises,” Martin continued. “Boone had the gumption to take his plan to the American people and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Let’s hope today’s political candidates show the same gumption and start solving the problem before it bankrupts us.”

Pickens is personally bankrolling a multi-million-dollar promotional campaign to direct America’s attention to our addiction to foreign oil and the fact that this is one problem we can’t drill ourselves out of.

“The best part about the Pickens Plan is the economic shot in the arm it would give to America,” Martin continued. “With our economy slumping, with unemployment rising, and with our tax base drying up, we need common-sense solutions. Creating jobs here at home and keeping $10 trillion in America sounds like common sense to me.”

More information about the Pickens Plan is available at www.pickensplan.com and 60 Plus can be found at www.60plus.org

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“WASHINGTON-The 60 Plus Association today warned that the Consumers-First Energy Act of 2008 “contains anti-market provisions and places domestic energy companies at a competitive disadvantage by hindering innovative energy solutions resulting in unbearable increases in fuel costs.

“America’s seniors are struggling under the current rise in gas and food prices,” said 60 Plus President Jim Martin. “This legislation worsens their situation, especially seniors struggling on fixed incomes.”

The bill targets U.S. energy companies for additional taxes in an effort to control high energy costs. Martin said these so-called windfall profits taxes will act as a subsidy for foreign competitors, resulting in even higher energy costs for Americans and increased reliance on foreign oil. “This was a failed policy in the 1980s, resulting then in reduced domestic oil production and increased oil imports, and higher prices at the pump for all Americans but especially seniors on fixed incomes. What is past is prologue and seniors remember all too well those dismal days, long lines at the pump, domestic production down and oil imports up.

“Attempting such measures again will only make the goal of American energy self-sufficiency seem impossible,” Martin said. “If forced to pay additional taxes, energy companies will be less able to develop sustainable energy solutions.” Martin further argued that “quality of life for seniors and others on fixed incomes will decrease as energy costs increase, and many more will be forced to decide between medications, groceries, and gasoline.”

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