One moviement is highly organized and bent on getting people elected who share its conservative beliefs. The other is loosely organized and less interested in backing candidates who share its liberal outlook. But both populist movements — the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street — have the potential to influence the 2012 presidential campaign and its outcome.
The Tea Party came on the scene in 2009, decrying federal spending, high taxes and the financial bailout. It has been a force in the Republican Party, helping the GOP gain several House seats in the 2010 election and propelling Herman Cain, creator of the 9-9-9 tax plan, to a prominent spot in the presidential primary race until he dropped out recently amid charges of sexual harassment.
The OWS movement began in September when protesters gathered in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street in Manhattan and refused to leave. The movement spread quickly, with “occupations” sprouting in other cities. OWS claims to represent the 99% of the population it says are subject to the economic dominance of the wealthiest 1%.
Demonstrators have called for a variety of changes, including the return of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act and an enactment of the so-called Buffett Rule, a new tax that would be assessed on individuals making more than $1 million a year. But the movement also has raised objections to broader issues, including the dismal job market, student loan debt and investment banks' role in selling doomed mortgage-backed securities.
Theda Skocpol, professor of government and sociology at Harvard University and co-author of “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism” (Oxford University Press, 2012) believes that of the two movements, OWS may wield more influence with American voters next year.
Ms. Skocpol said the public may be more sympathetic to President Barack Obama and the Democrats, especially if they blame Republicans for Washington's gridlock. “The public is turned off by this noncompromising style of politics,” she said.
But concern over OWS' protest tactics may make politicians stop short of embracing the movement.
“A number of members of Congress have expressed friendly attitudes toward the movement, but they fall short of direct endorsement,” said Todd Gitlin, professor at Columbia University's journalism school and specialist on political activism. “They want to speak to voters who are sympathetic to the movement's orientation.”
OWS' growing influence can be seen in New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to go back on a pledge not to raise taxes on the wealthy, as well as in a plan for a financial transactions tax proposed by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
However, it remains to be seen how active OWS will be in next year's election.
“OWS has had an effect of shifting the discussion toward issues of inequality and the fact that the well-to-do have gotten a lot of breaks in policy,” said Ms. Skocpol. “But OWS isn't as interested in changing Democrats as the Tea Party was in changing Republicans. And it's unclear how many of them vote.”
Tea Party activists, in contrast, know how to influence the Republican Party, getting their message out to critical legislators and voting as a bloc, she said.
For now, OWS is deciding how to proceed in the upcoming year, but its leaders note that its sympathizers come from both sides of the political spectrum and that many have lost faith in electoral politics.
“One thing with Occupy Wall Street is that it's not a right or left movement,” said OWS spokeswoman Linnea Palmer Paton. “There are people on both sides of the political spectrum, and championing these politicians is giving up power to them.”
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