The OWSers who are committed enough to actively protest may be mostly Democrats, but there are a significant number of Republican voters who listen and nod at the message about the decay of the middle class.
The Tea Partiers didn’t actually have very many participants but it was a rallying cry that energized a demoralized based.
I think OWS might serve much teh same role and provide enthusiasm to a demoralized Democratic base. A base that, like the tea party, is extremely disappointed in its political leadership.
This election isn’t won at the fringes, it’s won in the middle. Romney is feeling like he has the nomination sewn up, so he’s going after the middle part of America for support. The question remains if he’s doing it prematurely.
I bet you there will be a couple somewhere, across the nation. They’ll get outgunned, though.
First time I’ve seen the OWSers characterized even by implication as “the middle.”
Limbaugh and others absolutely detests Hillary Clinton so probably even worse and John Edwards being the nominee would probably guarantee GOP victory,
How can anything guarantee a Repub victory? have you watched the debates? What a group of stars that is.
We’re talking about all the 2012 elections here, including Congress. How will the OWS-vs.-Tea-Party lineup affect that?
There is plenty or resonance in the Occupation messages. It seems some states are prosecuting the mortgagers malfeasance . That will ring a chime for many who wonder why they were allowed to get away with grand theft.
There are people who know what the OWS goals are?!
People who read. They have expressed their concerns many times, but it does not distill down to one or 2.
Are there actually OWS candidates? Should there be?
I think there should be, but I’m guessing BrainGlutton disagrees.
Concerns =/= goals. Say what you will about the Tea Party, but at least they finally managed to cobble together an endgame (no matter that said endgame was electing one-term congresscritters with shady finances, and making said Congresscritters pretend to care about the Constitution).
This is an excellent point; unless and until OWS engages the political process, all they’re doing is “changing the conversation”–which given how fickle the media is just won’t have a lasting effect.
Endorsing and promting political candidates seems like a necessary condition for this movement to obtain the change they want. It’s hardly sufficient, but without it the media will either start to ignore them or (at the bidding of the more politically-connected 1%) portray them as violent or irrational. We’re already seeing the latter.
When you are representing the 99 percent, you have to address various concerns. The overriding issue is the bankers bilking millions out of their homes . But the lack of jobs is another legit and crippling problem. To people who are trying to get an education, having and educational mortgage is a big deal. To many desperate people ,halting foreclosures is a immediate concern. The Outrageous income gap is a huge deal to those who see it as a fundamental danger to the American system .
Replacing Glass/Steagal is another way to go.
There is a myriad of problems which grow from the core problem of allowing the wealthy to take over the government and pass laws and regulations that help them at the expense of the masses.
Big tent. Fine, I get it. The problem is that somebody still has to come up with a concrete list of demands and get others to support it.
That’s not where I was going with that comment. The message of Occupy is resonating, and there are registered Democrats and registered Republicans and they’re going to vote that way. The election is won or lost in those that aren’t declared. I don’t think that really clarifies, though.
Occupy Wall Street can have an impact on the election. The big question is if they *want *to.
They’re not any further from the middle than the Tea Party is. Both movements have mainstream arguments. The Tea Party message of smaller government, lower taxes, and lower debt isn’t exactly radical. Of course, neither is the Occupy Wall Street message of economic justice, financial regulation and accountability, and reversing wealth disparity. A reasonable person could be persuaded by arguments from either side.
No, I think the OWSers will have achieved a huge and meaningful success if they can just pull America’s political center-of-gravity leftwards, the way the Tea Partiers have been striving to pull it rightward. And there are various conceivable ways to achieve that, not all of them involving direct political negotiation or electoral actions of any kind in the near term. Beginning with Goldwater’s crushing defeat in 1964, the American far-right (such as it was; rather RINO by today’s standards), with the help of some interested wealthy/corporate donors, quietly (and to a great extent secretly) organized and organized, grassroots and astroturf, and built up their own network of D.C. think-tanks and supportive publications and commentators, and built a power by running far-right candidates in low-contest, low-publicity local elections (many such “flying under the radar,” i.e., dissembling their politics – sounds like somethin’ Commies would do, don’t it? ;)) , and took over the GOP from within and finally succeeded in taking power in 1980 with the Reagan Revolution. The OWSers could do something like that – and, as they are starting from a position of greater strength, in terms of visibility and grassroots popularity, than hard-right politics in 1964, they can do it all more openly, and they can do it faster.
- You can read the story in Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by Adrian Wooldridge and John Micklethwait.