Imagine you are a candidate for president. Your campaign manager tells you that Social Security reform is the “third rail of politics” and is considered an issue to be avoided. Why would your campaign manager give you this advice?

The Social Security reform is very popular with the senior citizens who are more active during elections than other age groups and they usually don't want any changes to their security programs.

Explanation:

Since the inception of the Social Security program due to the Great Depression in 1935, there have been changes applied to it since then. This program was targeted to help vulnerable people such as the old, the poor, widows, etc.

In recent times, however, there have been calls to review this program to be more inclusive to other people and Democrats tend to favor a budget increase to include other groups while Republicans are more conservative about the idea. Any adjustment made to this program would create a ripple effect and could seriously damage a candidate's popularity.