In an appearance on a Sunday talk program Maine Republican Olympia Snowe -- a key member of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Social Security -- did little to convey support for the President's plan to dismantle the successful program. As Mike Allen reports in Monday's Washington Post, the Senator in fact displayed significant doubt as to whether any major overhaul needs to take place.

Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate on the Finance Committee who will be at the center of negotiations over Social Security legislation, yesterday became the latest Republican to express reservations about President Bush's plans, saying that voters are leery and Congress must act cautiously.

"There is a lot of fear among seniors," Snowe said on CNN's "Inside Politics Sunday."

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Snowe's skepticism could force notable changes in the package, Bush's most ambitious domestic goal for his second term. Republicans said that getting her onboard will make it easier to recruit a few Democrats, who will be needed to get a big enough margin to satisfy Senate rules.

With so much opposition to Bush's plans, GOP consultants are now attempting to invoke two leading Democrats in calling for privitazation. As The Post's Jonathan Weisman reports, though, such a strategy is disingenuous at best.

With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis.

But the gambit carries some risk, Bush supporters say. Clinton's repeated calls during his second term to "save Social Security first" were specifically to thwart what President Bush ultimately did: cut taxes based on federal budget surplus projections. Likewise, internal Treasury Department documents indicate that Moynihan, a New York Democrat who was co-chairman of Bush's 2001 Social Security Commission, expressed misgivings about the president's push to partially privatize Social Security.

Bush's Social Security plan, not yet even fully unveiled to the public, is becoming less likely to be enacted everyday.