Cato’s Michael Tanner says the elections were a big victory for Social Security choice. But all the races he cites as evidence don’t quite fit the description.

He cites Dole’s victory over Bowles in South Carolina. But while the race was close and certainly winnable for Bowles, it’s hardly a shocker that a Republican with high name recognition like Dole won in the conservative South. It’s not a referendum on anything but that the South is a solid Republican bloc nowadays.

In Georgia, Tanner even admits that Chambliss’s win over Cleland “largely turned on national security issues.” He also notes that Minnesota’s Norm Coleman took a Social Security Choice pledge. But that victory more likely turned on Minnesotans’ reaction to the Wellstone family’s memorial service turned liberal Democrat rally and Mondale’s flaccid debate performance. Anyhow, Coleman barely won that race.

Furthermore, when Dubya stumped for candidates his main selling points were the need to invade Iraq, create a Homeland Security Department, and make the tax cuts permanent. And it’s obviously his popularity as a war president, not as a Social Security reformer, that helped carry some Republicans to victory.

And the political reality, as opposed to the campaign promises, is that the real test on Social Security choice is not public opinion about a theoretical idea, but the pragmatic difficulty of killing the Democrats’ golden goose. It wasn’t a bad night for Social Security choice, but let’s not get carried away.