Students of American politics should take many lessons from the most recent debate on Social Security reform, as the perfect example of how conservatives have taken advantage of the new political reality. The new political reality constitutes a conservative populism based upon individual choices and personal responsibility.The ownership society President Bush wants to create takes advantage of something so ingrained in the American ethos: distrust in governmental entitlement programs and an American belief that an individual can make better decisions than the government. When it comes to having the choice between governmental and private ownership, the Republican Party, specifically Bush, has taken advantage of the nation's turn to the right. It is, as Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth said, "a conservative New Deal."

The greatest lesson from the whole Social Security debate is how the Democratic Party has become primarily a party of maintaining the status quo and a party of oppositional rhetoric, not ideas. The term 'liberal' constitutes a person who is progressive and who seeks to change old and outmoded institutions. The term 'conservative' constitutes the exact opposite. But yet, the Democrats want to keep Social Security as it is, since Senator Harry Reid from Nevada said that the system is not a state in crisis.

In the case of Social Security the Democrats contradict themselves by their sheer neglect of facts. Once Bush said that he wanted to deal with Social Security, calling the system "broke," Democrats and liberal commentators pounced on him for creating a crisis where there was none. Paul Krugman insinuated, in a recent article in Rolling Stone, that Bush wanted to create a false crisis to fulfill a conservative dream to totally eliminate Social Security.

If anyone reads a piece by any liberal politician or columnist talking about the false crisis in Social Security, there is one question that must be asked: when President Clinton campaigned across the country for congressional candidates in 1998, saying that Social Security was in trouble, what exactly changed that now makes the program solvent?

But now that Bush has raised the issue, Democrats feel uncomfortable to admit something their leadership said then: the system is in trouble. Talk about naavet! Why have they suddenly felt uncomfortable speaking about the crisis they were so easily willing to speak about six years earlier?

It is because the president and more congressional candidates across the country have been reaching greater successes in running on the partial-privatization plan. The Bush Social Security reform plans had much success at the polls.

The Democrats then realize that the political reality is moving towards the conservatives on this issue. With the idea of choice-giving individuals the ability to control their own money rather than government bureaucrats-conservatives utilize the populist beliefs in individual choice and personal responsibility.

Even worse news for the Democrats is that they have yet to achieve an alternative to the president's plan. Are they going to raise payroll taxes? Are they going to cut benefits? Both sound terrible. The Democrats seem to be stuck in response mode. Without proposing ideas of their own, they are merely criticizing the president's plan. And of course, to deal with the issue, they scare seniors and workers into thinking that by "privatizing" the president wants to destroy Social Security.

No president can eliminate Social Security because it is the "third rail" of American politics. As much as some think Bush is a conservative nutcase, he is a politician and the Republican Party cannot win elections as the party that eliminated Social Security. The president has made it clear that everyone who wants to be part of Social Security will get a check in the mail.

But whether one agrees with the president's plan or not, we must all realize that Social Security reform must be a reality now. President Bush is only agreeing with what the Democratic leadership had been saying years ago.

In the case of Social Security, political convenience should not dictate American policy. Instead, a debate must form as to what must be done to protect a system upon which so many depend. A system that will start to go into debt 20 years from now is not good for the believers in Roosevelt's New Deal. Liberals and conservatives alike have a stake in the protection of Social Security. The time for hard choices and debate should come now rather than later.