WASHINGTON – President Bush should stop his negative talk about a “crisis” in Social Security as he travels across the country promoting his plan for private retirement accounts and instead emphasize positive ideas of “ownership” and personal “choice,” pollsters advised his supporters yesterday.

In crafting their public relations strategy, operatives on both sides of the policy debate were urged to recognize that they are in a battle for the long-term loyalties of younger voters who doubt they will receive Social Security benefits when they retire.

Democrats were advised to “steal away” the issue from Republicans by proposing their own alternatives, rather than downplaying the need for change. So far, they have criticized the president for calling Social Security’s long-term solvency problem a “crisis,” arguing that the system’s financial strains are decades away and can be remedied without drastic changes to the program’s structure.

The no. 1 attraction among supporters of the private accounts is the idea that “it’s my money,” said the pollster John Zogby, who has conducted numerous polls on the subject, including a survey in recent weeks.

Concern for the solvency of the Social Security system is lower on the list, he told a conference devoted to the subject held by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank that supports letting workers divert their Social Security taxes into private retirement accounts.

“I think the president and Republicans are making a big mistake by fighting this on a ‘crisis,'” Mr. Zogby said.

The head of market research company Presentation Testing, Richard Thau, said voters foremost want their ideal Social Security system to “protect their savings from Washington politicians.”

Keeping seniors out of poverty came in second, followed by other considerations such as guaranteeing the size of benefits or controlling the risk on returns, said Mr. Thau, who has held focus groups with voters nationwide.

The strategy of criticizing the president’s proposals, without offering any of their own, may hurt the Democrats, especially with younger voters, the pollsters agreed.

“Democrats would be wise to jump over the aisle and steal the issue,” Mr. Zogby said.

And, in the end, the party that succeeds in crafting the solution will gain the loyalty of younger voters, predicted pollster Scott Rasmussen. Since many young people do not expect to collect all or any of their promised benefits, “the dollar they get to put into a personal account will make them feel a dollar wealthier,” he said.

“It’s almost like a tax cut for them,” he said.

Mr. Bush has an advantage in the debate because the presidency gives him a powerful platform, while the Democrats lack a single strong voice on the issues, he said. Today, Mr. Bush travels to North Carolina and Pennsylvania in a nationwide tour to promote the plan.

Lawmakers who support the policy say directly appealing to grassroots voters will help build support for the plan in Congress, and it will put pressure on Democratic members in red states to support it.

Rep. James Kolbe, a Republican of Arizona, told the conference that the proposal would need the support of at least 30 to 40 Democrats in Congress. Their support could be won, but only through direct appeal to their constituents, he said.

“That is what the president is doing,” he said of Mr. Bush’s cross-country tour.

Meanwhile, New York Democrats yesterday continued their assault on the president’s proposal. Rep. Charles Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, said the administration suffers from a “credibility gap” on Social Security.

But Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, told the Cato conference that Democrats from states “that are not Massachusetts, New York, and California” are amenable to be swayed.

“This is an opportunity to focus on young people,” he added.

As part of their sales strategy, Mr. Santorum urged advocates to reject assertions that creating the accounts will create large “transition costs.”

The preferred label for the hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowing that will likely be required is “prefunding a liability that already exists, in a way that will save the government money over time,” he said.

Another challenge facing Republicans is the fact that seniors, who are significantly more skeptical of accounts, are paying much closer attention to the debate than are young people. The only way to win their support for the plan is to convince them that their benefits will not be cut, Mr. Santorum said.

Before the president’s State of the Union address, 48% of seniors said they believed their benefits would be cut.

After his speech, that number dropped by nine points, said Mr. Rasmussen.

“He has to keep making that point,” Mr. Rasmussen said.

In a poll last month of 1,004 likely voters nationwide, Mr. Zogby said he found that only 14% of respondents believed the system is in crisis. However, more than half – 52% – said it has “serious problems.” The poll had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

The two solutions with the most support were to limit benefits so they would be targeted at poorer seniors and to allow workers to invest the money in personal accounts. But neither plan had overwhelming support.

A large majority of respondents supported the idea of reducing the rate of growth in benefits to the rate of inflation, but that support disintegrated if the change was presented as a “benefit cut,” several pollsters said.

While the AARP and other critics argue that investing Social Security taxes in the stock market is too risky, Mr. Zogby said respondents believe a greater risk is that they will never see their Social Security benefits.