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FOX promoting pro-Bush
seniors group USA Next
Media Matters
February 25, 2005
FOX News has repeatedly hosted representatives of USA Next, a
conservative lobbying group formerly known as the United Seniors
Association (USA), who have come on the network to attack the
AARP, a chief opponent of President Bush's plans to privatize
Social Security. Among USA Next's claims articulated on FOX are
that the AARP is "the world's largest left, liberal lobbying
organization in the world" that is "definitely against
traditional values." USA Next's chairman and chief executive,
Charles W. Jarvis, and its national chairman, entertainer Art
Linkletter, have appeared on FOX News three times in the past ten
days. But despite the fact that the group has spent millions of
dollars to support Republican candidates and policies, was
founded and is currently led by prominent Republicans, and is
advised by Republican consultants, FOX News did not identify USA
Next as Republican -- or even conservative -- in any appearance
by Jarvis or Linkletter.
Founded by conservative activist Richard Viguerie, USA was
among several advocacy groups he set up to "bombard[] the elderly
with tens of millions of solicitations, generating millions of
dollars in fees for his private companies," according to a
November 12, 1992, New York Times report. USA's "board and
executives consist entirely of direct-mail experts and people
active in conservative causes," the Times reported, and noted
that the organization had been criticized by members of both
parties for "preying on vulnerable old people with statements
that distort the problems facing Social Security and Medicare,
especially by exaggerating the threat to current retirees."
In 1995, USA worked with discredited Republican pollster Frank
Luntz to craft a controversial memo on Medicare that referred to
older Americans as "pack-oriented" and "susceptible to following
one very dominant person's lead," according to a July 13, 1995,
Washington Post article, which called USA "an organization that
is more sympathetic to the Republican plans than most
others."
The Center for Responsive Politics describes USA as an
organization that "has ties to the Republican party. Its
president and CEO, Charles Jarvis, once worked for Ronald Reagan
and George H.W. Bush. Other staff and board members worked as
lobbyists for the Republican Party, are former GOP congressmen,
or worked for conservative organizations such as Focus on the
Family."
In its guise as a seniors' organization, USA has lent support
to a multitude of Republican initiatives. According to a March
16, 2001, Dallas Morning News report, USA launched a $2 million
radio ad campaign in support of President Bush's tax cuts. An
April 19, 2002, USA press release titled "Seniors Deplore Senate
Loss of ANWR Vote" expressed the group's "disappointment and
dismay at the Senate's vote against" drilling for oil in Alaska.
A June 4, 2003, USA press release "urged House Democrats and
Republicans to join together to pass H.R. 760, the Partial Birth
Abortion Ban of 2003." USA has also consistently made pointed
political attacks on Democrats; its press releases (which are no
longer available on USA's website) have such titles as "Seniors
See Senator Daschle as Roadblock to Economic Recovery,"
"Democrats Doom Prescription Drugs for Seniors," "Senate
Democrats Still Putting Politics Over People," and "Estrada Vote
a Sign of the Great Liberal Deathwish?"
USA's current incarnation, USA Next, has maintained its
Republican ties. As Media Matters for America has noted, the New
York Times reported on February 21 that USA Next hired
consultants who previously worked with Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth (now Swift Vets and POWs for Truth) to "orchestrate
attacks" as part of USA Next's $10 million campaign against the
AARP. According to the Times, one consultant is Chris LaCivita,
who earned more than $30,000 advising the Swift Boat Veterans'
media campaign attacking Senator John Kerry. Media Matters has
previously detailed how Tom Synhorst, chairman of the political
strategy firm DCI Group, for which LaCivita has worked, was
connected to a smear campaign against Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
during the 2000 South Carolina Republican presidential primary.
The Times article also reported that USA Next "has turned to
Creative Response Concepts, a Virginia firm that represented both
Swift Vets -- the company was paid more than $165,000 -- and
Regnery Publishing," publisher of the anti-Kerry book Unfit for
Command, co-authored by Swift Boat Veterans co-founder John E.
O'Neill. The group is "seeking to hire" Rick Reed, a partner at a
firm paid more than $276,000 to do media production for Swift
Boat
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