Why Barack Obama Would Love to Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street protests, and similar Occupations in other cities, have captured the attention of the press and the public, being as they are spontaneous, loud, spirited and, most importantly, boisterous expressions of what a lot of people are thinking. With a diverse agenda, donated food, and small contributions that are often made online, the Occupiers bear a striking resemblance to Barack Obama's 2007-08 primary campaign. That, too, was a built on a groundswell of disaffected citizens and was notable for the large number of small contributions it garnered, often online. Obama was clever enough to keep his agenda vague, allowing a diverse collection of unhappy voters project their wishes onto their images of him--change, indeed, that they could believe in. Much of his appeal was that he could capture the attention of the politically restless--he wasn't one of the same old, same old candidates but seemingly a breath of fresh air.

Now, President Obama has sunk into the muck of incumbency. He has a track record. He's taken positions. He made changes, or not. He's proven to be a reclusive President, perhaps not understanding that people can find the human side of their leaders endearing. In public, he is poised and articulate, but not relaxed. He's no longer a breath of fresh air.

Obama's prospects in the 2012 elections against the ever-shifting GOP frontrunner don't look bad. But he's hardly got a lock on re-election. The Republicans, depending on their nominee, will capture at least some of the energy of the Tea Party movement. The Democrats, and Obama in particular, would want to counter with their own insurgency of the discontented. Whichever candidate the biggest political flash mob coalesces around in 2012 will win the election. That's why Obama would love to occupy Wall Street.

Barack Obama's Lucky Breaks

Barack Obama is a lucky man. Even as the economy idles in neutral and his ratings sink, good things keep happening to him.

Lucky Dollar. Europe's debt crisis is getting worse--a Belgian bank was just nationalized, which means more liabilities for Belgian taxpayers. The dollar remains attractive and capital is flowing into high quality dollar denominated assets. Interest rates remain low but the strengthened dollar prevents a flood of capital out of the U.S.

Bad Guys Can't Hide. U.S. counterinsurgency forces have successfully dealt with bin Laden and Awlaki. Although this is mostly the result of patient, painstaking intelligence work, there's an element of luck in these successes and Obama has been very lucky in the war against terrorism.

Occupy Wall Street. This largely spontaneous protest movement provides the Democrats with an opportunity to organize a counterweight to the Tea Party. In his typically cautious style, Obama waited three weeks before speaking favorably of the Occupiers. The protests give him an opportunity. He's lost most of the popular groundswell that got him elected in 2008, and Occupy Wall Street let's him recover some of his losses. Not all Occupiers like Obama. But not all Tea Partiers like the Republicans and that didn't prevent the Republicans from co-opting the Tea Party movement.

Stock Market Loves Big Government. Ignore what Wall Street says and watch what it does. Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied some 330 points on vague promises by France and Germany to do something or other to support their banks. Also heartening for stocks was Belgium's nationalization of a sovereign debt-laden bank, Dexia and, Belgium's, France's and Luxembourg's guarantees of some 90 billion Euros of Dexia's future borrowings (which presumably would be used to pay existing creditors off). In other words, losses that would have fallen on financial market participants will now fall on European taxpayers. If you're a banker, you gotta love that. Since Obama's principal policy options at this point are one variant of big government or another, he's lucky to have a stock market that will cheer his every policy success.