AARP Joins Effort to Steer Candidates Toward Its Issues

The American Association of Retired Persons has joined with the Business Roundtable and Service Employees International Union in an effort to force presidential candidates to make health care and retirement key issues in the race to the White House, reports The Boston Globe.

The three groups plan to spend a total of more than $60-million to get their issues to the forefront of the national agenda, an unusually large financial commitment, the Globe reports.

It is the second heavily financed agenda-setting effort announced in recent weeks, following the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $60-million commitment to persuade candidates to pay attention to the issue of education.

The Divided We Fail coalition, which will focus on 10 states, five of which are early primary states, has already spent money to hire employees and buy advertising, the newspaper reports.

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