The meetings, which will not explicitly push personal accounts, are being staged with the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security, which was founded by the National Association of Manufacturers to promote the idea and is funded by business groups and pharmaceutical companies.
AARP, the largest seniors organization, is also sponsoring the events. AARP, which says it held similar meetings with President Bill Clinton, favors individual accounts "only if they are in addition to Social Security," said John Rother, the group's policy director.
GOP strategists said Bush's plan should appeal to suburban voters who have little interest in the social issues that motivate his core supporters. Most crucially, these strategists said, it is a way for the party to make inroads among younger voters, who have been shown in polls to be more open to the idea than their parents.
A Washington Post poll in August found that 58 percent of respondents had savings invested directly or indirectly in the markets, compared with 44 percent six years ago. Bush's aides have long eyed this "investor class," which boomed with the popularity of mutual funds, as a key to the party's long-term growth.
Polls have shown majority support for individual accounts. AARP says that respondents are endorsing the general notion of control but that support declines as respondents learn details.
Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), a presidential candidate, said he looks forward to Bush drawing attention to the issue, which Gephardt said can only help his party after the stock market's decline from the highs of a few years ago and amid the new investigations of mutual funds. "It's crazy, and it's just not feasible," he said. "There's so much uncertainty in the world now that people want certainty on health care and on pensions."
A strategist for another Democratic presidential campaign said Bush "might as well pour gasoline on himself and light a match."
Even some people close to Bush said they still consider the issue a loser. Republican leadership aides on Capitol Hill said it is more likely to be a winner if Congress passes the GOP plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. "That will give us credibility with seniors," an aide said. "But it's a hard slog. When he was running in 2000, there was this euphoria that the market would never go down again."
