Pelosi: Occupy Movement Enhances Dems’ National Message

[kpete]

Source: Talking Points Memo

Despite some unfavorable polling, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi still thinks the Occupy movement has been politically helpful to Democrats.

In an interview with TPM on Friday, she said there’s no recent precedent for the sort of election House Democrats are going into. In 1994 and 2010, Congressional Republicans ran against Washington controlled by Democrats. In 2006, Congressional Democrats ran against Republican corruption and President George W. Bush. This time around, President Obama will carry the national message for the party while individual candidates use it as they see fit to win in their districts. That national message, Pelosi said, has much greater salience thanks to the Occupiers.

“Our statement is we are reigniting, Democrats are reigniting the American dream, building ladders of success, removing obstacles to opportunity to all who work hard and play by the rules,” Pelosi said. “We have work to do. We think that important to that is enhanced by what’s happening in the Occupy (movement), which is the 99 and one. They really emblazoned that in the minds of the American people. That’s what we dedicated our lives to, but they gave it that clarity. People say they didn’t have a message. They may not have a message, but they have a statement. And the statement is the status quo is unacceptable — 99 and one.”

If it’s a marriage, it’s not a very happy one. Many Democrats are hesitant to align themselves directly with the movement, particularly as the movement’s favorability falls. And the Occupy movement itself recently protested outside DCCC headquarters. But the movement’s key issues like addressing income inequality are still wildly popular and Democrats will benefit from that.

Read more: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/pelosi-occupy-movement-enhances-dems-national-message.php

[Arctic Dave]

1. No Nancy, OWS thinks you are part of the problem also.

All your cackling will not coop the movement.

[JNelson6563]

31. Wow. "Cackling"?

Nice.

[defendandprotect]

2. What BS ... OWS is saying that both parties are finished ... wake up, Nancy!!

[Iliyah]

3. I beg to differ

Nancy is right. OWS and Dems message are on the same plain which resonate with at least many here in Los Angeles. I find it easy for some to say it doesn't, but when the repubs take the WH, please don't come on and say geeez I made a mistake in not voting or voting for some candidate who has a chance in hell in winning. Remember 2010? I bet many do in OH, WI, FL, MI and other states.

[defendandprotect]

6. Weren't they trying to OCCUPY Nancy at one point and she had them arrested -- ???

In fact, most Americans recognize that our government is totally dysfunctional

because of so many representatives have sold themselves to elite/corporations.

And that's why OWS is in the streets -- and why there is so much support for them.


And, please, put the FEAR-BASED posting away with the "perfect president" and "pink

ponies" and "chess game."


I'd also remind you that 2010 happened because of Obama's betrayal on single payer/

MEDICARE4ALL -- in back room deals with Big Pharma and the private H/C industry --

all of which Karl Rove "crowed" about telling business how "grateful" they should be

to Obama -- especially for "preserving the private H/C industry" -- !!


Ppuke:


And what makes you think if Obama is too far to the right for America that anyone is

going to vote for the GOP?


This movement is about moving to the LEFT -- !!

[patrice]

9. That's what you ASSUME is a betrayal. Assumptions are derived from selective & LIMITED information.

[dotymed]

8. IMO, OWS and the Democratic Ideals of the past, not the "new

way" but the "New Deal" ideals are very compatible. We have a majority in the Senate, yet we just passed a draconian piece of legislation that (if passed) will set back civil rights tremendously. We have to take money out of politics.

[zalinda]

10. Unfortunately, this has not been the dems message

in years. This was FDR's dem message, but not Obama's. And, if you didn't know, it was the indies and the young who stayed home in 2010. OWS has nothing to do with the dems. It has everything to do with the people. The dems have jumped on the 1% band wagon with Clinton, and have enjoyed their income enhancing ride.

zalinda

[No Elephants]

27. The mid terms happened as they did because today's Democrats are NOT on the same plane

with workers anymore.

Obama promised change, but did not deliver it, despite an overwhelming majority of Democrats in the House and 60 in the Senate's Democratic Caucus.

As a result, people who Obama had energized and inspired in 2008n had became disaffected by 2010.

[Cal Carpenter]

4. Sorry, Nancy, not until the measurable results of policies

match the party's rhetoric can you even pretend this is so.

[gratuitous]

5. If by "enhance" you mean "correcting", then yeah

Democrats haven't been talking or acting nearly forcefully enough in the last few years. With polls showing 68% of voters in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy, Democrats have dithered for years about whether or not it's wise to go back to pre-2001 tax rates on the wealthy. "Gee, we might lose the votes of people who would slit their wrists and crawl naked over shards of glass before they'd pull the lever for a Democrat. Let's sit tight for another election cycle."

Get your Democratic asses in gear, goddammit! We didn't elect you to be Republicans.

[patrice]

7. I hung out with OccupyDC Livestream chat last night it was FULL of the Ron Paul campaign. nt

[No Elephants]

28. Quite a few at DU as well.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[patrice]

13. You pay taxes? We're ALL war criminals. The Iraqis were INNOCENT. nt

[patrice]

14. The system is what it is, because we are who we are. nt

[Kingofalldems]

12. I notice republicans are dead set against OWS

[Atypical Liberal]

15. As an active participant in Occupy, Pelosi is wrong.

The only way the Democrats might benefit from the Occupy movement is that Occupiers won't vote to the right to make things even worse than voting for the left. Thus they may vote to the left given no other choice.

But the whole reason this movement has exploded is after 4 years of electing someone who promised CHANGE they are now tired of waiting and are demanding change now.

We see that in spite of electing someone who promised change, it appears that the financial influence over our government runs so deep that both sides of the isle are effectively bought. No change thus seems possible. Either it was a sham and Obama never planned any change or once he got in office he found the system so entrenched he could not fight against it.

I like to think the latter, but frankly I would expect even a powerless president and/or party to at least PUBLICLY ADVOCATE for our cause even if he was powerless to enact it. And I'm not seeing that.

Trust me - the main feeling of the Occupy movement is that the whole fucking system is fucked and undermined.

[Scuba]

16. Sorry Nancy, but the Dems are going to have to work very hard to win over...

... the Occupy movement.


Our Democrats, particularly at the Federal level, have catered to the 1%. Time for an overhaul.

[Zorra]

17. Actually, IMO, Occupy does have much in common with the *traditional* Democratic

party message.

Take the DLC/Third party neo-liberal free trade globalists out of the Democratic party, and Rep. Pelosi would be close to spot on.

[JDPriestly]

19. OWS has much in common with the traditional Democratic "party message."

But it has much, much less to do with the current Democratic Party's actions and votes.

That's what Pelosi has to change if she wants the support of the millions of us who may not actually be demonstrating but who sympathize with the message of OWS.

And we are millions.

Even people who find the idea of camping out and making a lot of noise embarassing agree with the OWS message. Very few people don't.

That is why the OWS movement includes professionals, Ron Paul followers, enthusiastic Democrats as well as disenchanted Democrats, people who are and are not "political" and, at least in LA, (based on a sign I saw in front of a tent there) one former real estate agent who became sick and tired of the status quo.

[Zorra]

21. yeh, I get that.

I'm totally occupy.

There's a big Occupy party at the port in Long Beach, at Harry bridges Park 1126 Queens Hwy. on 12/12.

You are cordially invited to attend. Bring guests! Spread the word!

http://occupylosangeles.org/?q=node/2511

[Atypical Liberal]

23. Posts like this make me wish this forum had upvotes.

+1000.

[Atypical Liberal]

18. Consider this: Obama has accepted more Wall Street money than all Republican candidates combined.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-has-more-cash-from-financial-sector-than-gop-hopefuls-combined-data-show/2011/10/18/gIQAX4rAyL_story.html?hpid=z1?wpisrc=al_politics

"Despite frosty relations with the titans of Wall Street, President Obama has still managed to raise far more money this year from the financial and banking sector than Mitt Romney or any other Republican presidential candidate, according to new fundraising data."

"As a result, Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all of the GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data."

But while Iceland is arresting bankers involved in the 2008 financial meltdown, the United States is arresting protesters.

Check out these 60 minutes segments on how the US Department of Justice is doing NOTHING:

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/60_minutes_shames_justice_department_over_wall_street_20111204/

If you read and watch this and think the Occupy Movement is going to fawn all over the Democrats you have another thing coming.

[defendandprotect]

20. Wow -- !!! Obama is Wall street -- !!

[Fire Walk With Me]

22. Has Pelosi said word one against the brutality and arrests of what, 5,000 peaceful protesters?

Or taken Goldman Sachs to supreme task?

"Not one of us"

[Huey P. Long]

24. Co-opting OWS is 'off the table', You are a liar, Nancygirl. -eom

[No Elephants]

26. Ouch!

[MisterP]

25. OWS is against warmongering, outsourcing, and rewarding big finance for criminality

they're not going to be any party's personal reelection team

[Le Taz Hot]

29. Nice try, Nancy, but the Occupy movement

exists BECUASE the Democrats are JUST as culpable in this pay-to-play game we call a government as are the Republicans and NONE OF THEM are Representing the 99%. The biggest mistake the 1% and their cabana boys/girls make is to assume the Occupiers are as stupid as they are.

[No Elephants]

30. OWS must be very embarrassing to elected Democrats.

If they had done what they had promised when they had the opportunity to do it, midterms would have gone very differently and many of the OWS folks would be working on the campaigns of various Democrats right now, instead of tenting.

[JNelson6563]

32. I wonder why so many who hate the Dems post here?

I mean, what would be the purpose?