Fargo, N.D. ? With the tenacity of a door-to-door salesman and tools of a math teacher, President Bush carried his pitch for reforming Social Security on Thursday directly to voters he hopes will help make his case with a balky Congress.

“I’m glad a lot of college kids are here, because we are talking about something that is affecting your life,” the president told several thousand supporters in a gymnasium at North Dakota State University. “And I want you to pay attention — something I didn’t necessarily do when I was in college.”

The president is getting the attention of Democratic senators who represent five states that Bush has targeted for two days of intensive personal campaigning for his plan after his State of the Union address Wednesday night. He was stumping Thursday in North Dakota and Montana, and is to visit Nebraska, Arkansas and Florida today.

While the Senate’s Democratic leader insists that his party has the votes to block Bush’s plan to offer America’s younger workers a new, government-run personal savings account as a supplement to Social Security, the president counts on making a direct connection with voters he believes stand to gain from his plan.

Bush is attempting to make at least two cases central to the success of the Social Security plan he detailed on Wednesday night.

The Social Security that American retirees have counted on as a safety net for seven decades will go bankrupt within the next few decades unless something is done to fix it, he argues; and young workers stand to gain more from a voluntary plan he proposes, allowing them to invest a portion of their payroll taxes in a personal savings plan.