John McCain spoke to AARP’s national “convention” via satellite feed at 12:30 pm ET today.  The format was similar to that of McCain’s opponent Barack Obama in that there were opening comments and a statement by McCain prior to a question and answer session from pre-submitted questions of AARP members.

McCain, in my mind, was at an advantage in his prepared remarks. Why, you may ask?  He probably heard Obama’s remarks.  He knew that Obama had spoken so did not have to reference Obama’s stand on anything.  He needed to clarify his position and give some specifics which I think Obama did to probably the greatest extent he has yet that I have heard.

McCain was at a disadvantage as his audio – at least on the streaming audio online – was poor through the first two minutes or so of his remarks.  This problem was noticed by someone other than me and was corrected.  McCain, as did Obama, supports Divided We Fail which is a conglomerate of organizations led by AARP working on the health care crisis in the US.

Before I get into the specifics on Social Security McCain mentioned in his remarks and answers to questions, I will say that many of his sound bites were old.  It is going to be a long eight weeks until November 4th if we continue to hear his line on Washington changing the Republican party and other catchy phrases.

McCain spoke to Social Security in both his prepared remarks and in his answers to AARP member questions.  He admits that Social Security is broken.  A truly out of touch politician – and there are a few out there – will not admit that the system is broken.  He says that the key to protecting and perserving Social Security is to work together – democrats and republicans.  He is committed to having a government that solves problems for its people.  He also reiterated taht he has a record of working in a bi-partisan manner as he named dropped Feingold, Lieberman, Kennedy.

Specifics were not as prevalent in McCain’s presentation.  He offered few if any in his prepared remarks.  In his question and answer session, he did provide a few.  McCain emphatically denied wanting mandatory privatization of Social Security.  He stated that the first step is to get all sides to admit that there is a problem, that there are unfunded liabilities.  He recommended work from David Walker, who is no longer a government employee but with the Concord Institute.  McCain says that he wants to give younger workers the option to invest some of their Social Security in a private manner.  This does not affect retirees and is not mandatory.

McCain then went into how Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill managed to save Social Security in 1983.  McCain was in congress at the time and says upfront that he did not agree with all parts of it but it did what was needed – put off insolvency for 25-30 or 35 years.  Every day we delay on fixing this broken system, the more radical the fix becomes.  McCain feels he can turn a groundswell of the American people to get their representation in Washington to work for the people’s actual good and get this done.

I truly believe that John McCain had less specifics on Social Security in his remarks to AARP today than Barack Obama.  McCain did, though, get in more topics/issues than Obama did overall.  I encourage you to listen to McCain’s remarks yourself at http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org_/TopicAreas/Events/life-at-50/webstream/mccain.html