At 50, AARP Enters Its Golden Years
With Boomers on Board, Seniors Lobby Flexes Its Muscle

By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 4, 2008

The late-night comedians love to needle AARP as the unflagging advance team for senility. They're the folks who send the dreaded membership invite when you hit 50, an otherwise sunny reminder that you're well on your way to that last roundup.

David Letterman, for one, suggested that Sylvester Stallone's latest geriatric version of Rambo should qualify for "an AARP discount on ammo." Jon Stewart joked that presidential candidates at an AARP-sponsored debate embraced the organization's principles, including that "your grandchildren are, in fact, adorable." The AARP debate was like others, Conan O'Brien observed, "except the moderator asked the same question over and over."

Life as a punch line can present certain annoying challenges, much like the achy joints and ever-failing vision that usually accompany aging itself.

But look who's laughing all the way to the early-bird special.

Fifty years after its founding by a retired high school principal, AARP is a premier lobbying power in Washington. Its 40 million members, many of them more than capable of finding a voting booth on Election Day, make it the country's single largest organization -- that is, if you don't count a little outfit called the Catholic Church.

As it begins its three-day anniversary party in Washington today, AARP won't be renting out a bingo hall for its opening ceremony. Try the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where stars of the over-50 set -- actress Sally Field, moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and NASCAR speedster Richard Petty, among them -- are to offer testimonials.

Then, at the Washington Convention Center over the next several nights, performances by Chaka Khan, Chicago and Paul Simon are likely to inspire, if not a love-in, then at least a massive outbreak of air guitar.

The celebration's geography is a reminder of AARP's muscle in Washington, its home base, where five years ago it helped President Bush persuade Congress to add prescription drug benefits to Medicare. Two years later, AARP flexed again, leading opposition to Bush's plan for private Social Security accounts.

"It's the largest, most effective lobbying group in D.C., and probably the world," said James Thurber, an American University government professor who studies lobbying. "It can stimulate people out there very quickly and get them to push back on issues. Just the threat of AARP against you gets people to change their minds."

Most recently, AARP has mounted a "Divided We Fail" campaign, urging political leaders to set aside partisan rancor to reform health care and to strengthen long-term financial security. The campaign's logo is the silhouetted fusion of the Democratic donkey and the Republican elephant. If the message seems a bit utopian for Washington, it serves another purpose: spreading AARP's name. As much as anything, AARP is a brand -- created in 1999 when the group performed a nip-and-tuck on its former title, the American Association of Retired Persons.

By dropping the "Retired" and adopting a four-letter name, AARP made itself more palatable to the baby boomers it was counting on to help churn hundreds of millions a year in revenue through membership fees and services. There are AARP television shows, a newspaper and glossy magazines, which cater to those boomers with cover stories about forever-young types like Caroline Kennedy (50!) and Jack Nicholson (71!). "Secrets of Your SEX DRIVE," began one recent headline. "Why You Want It, When You Want It . . . And How to Want It More."

AARP's varying missions raise the question: Is it an advocacy group or a business? And who is its constituency: those who spent their formative years swooning over Sinatra or rocking to the Stones?

"AARP is a giant with two heads," said Ken Dychtwald, an author and gerontologist. "On the one hand, it has got strong currents of altruism and moral high ground. On the other, it's a rip-roaring marketing engine."

"If you're trying to grow revenue and gain new members who are turning 50, then what they're doing is brilliant," Dychtwald said. "However, if your proposition is to be the defender and the advocate of the poor and elderly, it could be argued that you're a bit turning your back on them."

William D. Novelli, AARP's avuncular chief executive, waves off the criticism with the easy laugh of an elder dismissing a whippersnapper.

"Those revenues are what makes it possible to speak on behalf of older Americans," Novelli said. "Size and success brings criticism. I have an uncle who was a bombardier. He used to say, 'If you're not taking flak, you're not over the target.' "

The PR Man Comes to Town

Novelli's downtown office has the usual trappings of a Washington pooh-bah: at least one framed newspaper profile about the occupant, as well as photos of said occupant with various presidents (Bush I, Bush II and Clinton), one secretary of state (Colin Powell) and one prime minister (Tony Blair).

At 67, Novelli is the kind of senior citizen AARP loves to celebrate, an elder who doesn't act so elderly. He's a fitness freak who pumps considerable iron in AARP's gym and weighs only two pounds more than he did some 45 years ago when he played safety for the University of Pennsylvania's football team.

His idea of an April Fool's joke was to notify AARP's 1,200 District employees at its behemoth E Street NW headquarters that he was shutting down the elevators, perhaps permanently, and they would have to use the stairs. Novelli, of course, regularly hikes the 180 steps -- yes, he knows the number -- to his 10th-floor office (even after bench-pressing 175 pounds in the basement).

Novelli's path to AARP was a bit more circuitous. He grew up outside Pittsburgh, the son of a steelworker-turned-insurance agent, before embarking on a career in marketing and advertising. While he was invigorated by the competition and the challenge of climbing the ladder, he said he was nagged by a sense that there might be something more meaningful than peddling toothpaste.

A turning point, Novelli said, came after he joined a New York ad firm. He returned from a meeting with a client carrying two test samples in his briefcase: one for a new dog food, the other for kids' cereal. A copywriter came into his office and asked to see the cereal. As a joke, Novelli tossed him the sample of dog food.

"Yeah, we can sell that," the copywriter said.

Novelli knew then that he needed a change.

"I'm not demeaning selling dog food," he said. "I just couldn't find any social relevance in it, and that's what I was looking for."

He heard that the Peace Corps was seeking a marketing expert to help redraft its image and draw volunteers who could assist developing countries. If he could market a laundry detergent, he wondered, why not an idea or a cause?

While working at the Peace Corps, he hatched an idea with his boss, Jack Porter, to form a public relations firm that would specialize in health and social issues. Their plans were interrupted by a call from the White House, which enlisted Novelli to join its November Group, the team that devised slogans such as "Nixon. Now More Than Ever" during the 1972 presidential campaign.

"I believed in the reelection of the president," Novelli said, something he came to regret as the Watergate revelations piled high.

After that, he focused on building his public relations firm, Porter Novelli, which amassed an impressive portfolio that included Kellogg's, Hewlett-Packard and Corning. But what fired him up, he said, were campaigns such as the one launched to educate the public about the dangers of high blood pressure.

At the age of 49, Novelli left Porter Novelli, hoping to devote himself full time to social issues. His first stop was CARE, which combats global poverty, then the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He joined AARP in 2000, becoming chief executive the following year. His mission was to lasso the millions of baby boomers becoming old enough to join up.

"I looked at it as an opportunity to make social change," Novelli said. "The question was, could AARP appeal to the boomers and stay relevant?"

He took over a sprawling nonprofit group, which now has a $1.3 billion budget and 2,400 employees. It generates more than $1 billion in revenue, a stream produced by $12.50-a-year membership fees, grants and investments, royalties from endorsing everything from health insurance to motorcycle insurance, and by selling advertising space in its publications ($483,000 for a full-page ad in the magazine).

Novelli hoped to make AARP more of a player on Capitol Hill. He poured money into its lobbying operation, expanded the number of state offices and led AARP into the 2003 fight over Medicare reform. AARP's alliance with Bush prompted rebukes from a traditional ally, the Democratic Party, which painted Novelli as a Republican shill. Some 60,000 AARPers canceled their memberships, and senior citizens showed up outside headquarters to protest.

Novelli, a registered independent, maintained a pragmatist's steady hand, telling reporters that the Bush plan was not perfect, but "you're not going to get perfect legislation in this day and age."

Two years later, AARP countered the president's push to offer private Social Security accounts. AARP's $30 million campaign included ads accusing the administration of trying to "dismantle" Social Security. Bush's proposal was headed for oblivion.

The two episodes, Novelli said, are evidence that AARP is "down the middle." On display in his office are two framed quotes that he says prove his point, one of them from then-Sen. Trent Lott (R), who in 2002 called AARP a "wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party." Just below is another, from Rep. Pete Stark, a California Democrat, who two years later said that AARP stands for "Always Advocating for the Republican Party."

What's Old Is New Again, Sort of

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the elderly didn't need lobbyists fighting on their behalf in Washington. Older people controlled the land, the best seats at church and that ever-intangible commodity known as wisdom.

"Old was in," Dychtwald said. "People wanted to look old. They all had white wigs on. The idea was that the older one appeared, the more powerful you were. Flash-forward to today: Everyone dyes their hair and freezes their foreheads."

A turning point, he said, was the Industrial Revolution, which propelled new generations to pursue their dreams in the cities and leave their elders in the countryside. Another was the Roaring Twenties, when Americans grew enchanted by images of the young and restless dancing their nights away. Elvis and JFK, among others, helped seal the deal in later decades.

"The dark side was that if young was good, old was bad," Dychtwald said. "Older people got swept to the sidelines. They were moved out of the workforce. They were cast aside."

In the 1940s, Ethel Percy Andrus, a high school principal in California, reached the end of her 41-year career and discovered that her monthly pension check amounted to a grand total of $60.

How did retired teachers survive? she wondered.

Discovering that no group existed to fight for their interests, Andrus founded the National Retired Teachers Association. Eleven years later, she sought a broader constituency, forming AARP to help older Americans obtain health insurance and to agitate on their behalf.

"As it is," Andrus once told an interviewer, "when you leave a job, they often give you a gold watch and all you can do is look at it and count the hours until you die. Yet think of all the grand things we can do that youth can't."

Nearly a decade later, AARP claimed almost 1 million members. In 1983, the group dropped its membership age from 55 to 50; its ranks soon grew to 20 million.

But there were challenges. Older members were dying off and AARP had to figure out ways to recruit their replacements, the baby boomers who were reaching their 50s. As a group, boomers were elusive, reluctant to join anything or to think of themselves as aging, let alone retiring.

So AARP airbrushed its name.

Robert Binstock, a professor of age, health and society at Case Western Reserve University, recalled that AARP's leader at the time, Horace Deets, suggested that the reason for the change was to "make the organization more international and get 'American' out of it."

"He came from the old tradition and didn't want them to think they were rejecting the older members," Binstock said. "It was kind of laughable."

AARP experimented with other paths to the boomers, creating a magazine, My Generation, a not-so-subtle reference to a favored 1960s rock anthem. But that title lasted only a few years before a new publication, AARP the Magazine. It publishes three editions: one for 50-to-59-year-olds, another for 60-to-69-year-olds and a third for 70-plus.

A recent issue featured articles about wounded war veterans, health-care costs, heartburn, vacationing in Las Vegas and -- depending on your age group -- "The Completely Outrageous Passion of Martin Sheen" (for the 50-59), "Passionate Martin Sheen" (for 60-69) or "Brave Martin Sheen" (for 70-plus).

There are few, if any, glaring mentions of what one often associates with getting old, less-than-appetizing topics such as senility and fragility and, oh yes, death. The back pages are home to a few ads for senior-friendly devices, such as a chair lift for stairs and a "walk-in" bathtub, though the models don't exactly look like they need the help. "If you're presenting an ad, you can't show aging in a negative way," said Kurt Medina, a marketing consultant. "They're very strict about that."

Novelli said he likes to think of the publication as a "lifestyle magazine," aimed at the broadest audience possible. But that isn't to suggest that Novelli himself tunes out the darker aspects of aging.

As he contemplates his future -- he has announced he's leaving AARP in 2010 -- Novelli said his interests include focusing on how Americans deal with the prospect of dying.

Or "the end of life," as he puts it.

Too often, he said, they are unprepared for the kinds of decisions they will be confronted with as they or their loved ones approach death, whether it's medical issues or estate planning. "We have a culture of misunderstanding and inappropriate handling of death," he said.

As relevant as that topic may seem to AARP's membership, readers won't find it splashed on the cover of the magazine's next issue.

Instead, they will see a smiling Brian Williams, the boyishly handsome news anchor, who is eight long months shy of his 50th birthday.