Senior vote may surprise GOP

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006 | 11:28 a.m.

The Bush administration budgeted $400 million for a campaign to encourage senior citizens to enroll in its prescription drug program under Medicare. Republicans have been counting on this benefit to capture the senior-citizen vote in the mid-term elections.

Since the enrollment period began three months ago, an estimated 5.4 million seniors have signed on. With about 40 million seniors eligible, the relatively slow rate of sign ups may indicate that seniors will not be so supportive of the GOP after all.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, disputed that view this week, saying on CBS's "Face the Nation" that the benefit will be a ''huge plus'' politically.

Time could prove us wrong, but in our view the Republicans are in grave danger of losing the senior vote, which has helped place them in power in recent elections. Seniors nationwide have complained bitterly about how confusing the drug plan is and how inefficiently it has been working.

Our sense is that seniors will come to see the drug plan as more of a benefit to the pharmaceutical companies than to themselves. Once that happens, they could come back in droves to the Democratic Party, which they remember as the party that brought them Medicare in the first place.