Campaign 2012 begins at Wall Street | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    By now, most everyone has seen something about the "Occupy Wall Street" or wherever. About 400 people demonstrated in Raleigh Saturday (10-15-11) and half that number were reported in Chapel Hill. The Elite Media is pushing the demonstrations as hard as they can. Most people we know don't get very excited about the protests. In fact, they're not even sure what's being protested.

    But the Washington Post on Sunday (10-16-11) ran an interesting analysis on the phenomenon. They suggest that Obama will use the "Occupy Wall Street" as a campaign ploy to try to win re-election. This after taking more campaign money from Wall Street fat cats than any president in history.

    Protesters in Zuccotti Part in New York...Reuters photo via Yahoo News With all due deference to the august Washington Post we don't believe the strategy will work. Most Americans are more interested in their own daily lives than they are in what is going on in lower Manhattan, either inside the skyscrapers or on the streets. And we don't believe Obama will be able to convince most Americans that he will be any more effective in another four years than he has been in the last four.

    Trying to ride the anger of the protesters is a risky undertaking. In fact, the simple fact that the WaPo would even publish that Team Obama would try to use these protesters will most likely not go down so well with those who are not high on the payroll of the unions and other rabblerousing organizations. Obama may think he can, in the words often attributed, correctly or not, to Joseph Stalin (anyone see the irony of that?), use the "useful idiots" but he best know that sword cuts both ways. Then, that is the stock in trade of "community organizers." They know nothing else but rabblerousing.

    The difference between the current situation and those Obama has experienced as a "community organizer" in the past is that protesters are only effective in attacking the establishment. They are outsiders and those inside are the targets. The trick therefore will be whether Obama can paint himself as an outsider. He'll have about as much possibility of doing that as George Soros would have in presenting himself as a "working man." Will Obama be able to position himself as the "solution" or will the voters see him as "the problem"? We will know on November 7, 2012.

    Nonetheless, the Post's article is interesting food for thought. Click here to read the story.