The Gary Null Blog

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Wall-Street-Occupiers-by-Robert-Reich-111008-948.html

Will the Wall Street Occupiers morph into a movement that has as much impact on the Democratic Party as the Tea Party has had on the GOP? Maybe. But there are reasons for doubting it.

Tea Partiers have been a mixed blessing for the GOP establishment -- a source of new ground troops and energy but also a pain in the assets with regard to attracting independent voters. As Rick Perry and Mitt Romney square off, that pain will become more evident.

So far the Wall Street Occupiers have helped the Democratic Party. Their inchoate demand that the rich pay their fair share is tailor-made for the Democrats' new plan for a 5.6 percent tax on millionaires, as well as the President's push to end the Bush tax cut for people with incomes over $250,000 and to limit deductions at the top.

And the Occupiers give the President a potential campaign theme. "These days, a lot of folks who are doing the right thing aren't rewarded and a lot of folks who aren't doing the right thing are rewarded," he said at his news conference this week, predicting that the frustration fueling the Occupiers will "express itself politically in 2012 and beyond until people feel like once again we're getting back to some old-fashioned American values."

But if Occupy Wall Street coalesces into something like a real movement, the Democratic Party may have more difficulty digesting it than the GOP has had with the Tea Party.

After all, a big share of both parties' campaign funds comes from the Street and corporate board rooms. The Street and corporate America also have hordes of public-relations flacks and armies of lobbyists to do their bidding -- not to mention the unfathomably deep pockets of the Koch Brothers and Dick Armey's and Karl Rove's SuperPACs. Even if the Occupiers have access to some union money, it's hardly a match.

Yet the real difficulty lies deeper. A little history is helpful here.