SAN FRANCISCO, CA --  The Occupy Wall Street message has been effective. They initially chose the right common enemy.  The banks and bank bailouts angered not just the student demonstrators.  The banks and financial giants generated anger among home owners, those who owe more than their homes are worth, millions who have lost their homes, or watched bank bailouts, or saw their jobs eliminated or threatened by the subsequent recession.  Targeting the banks and government bailouts was an effective common theme.

But for a second time, Occupy demonstrators have targeted West Coast ports.  A total media misfire.  Ports are not banks. 

The Occupy movement, or those who participated in effort to close down West Coast ports violated several Saul Alinksy's direct action rules:  First, find a message and persist.  Second, don’t alienate your base, find a common enemy that unites the community.  Third, if you’re going to conduct a symbolic demonstration, target the most guilty not the most accessible.   Fourth,  don’t cause rifts in the movement – an action must be transparent and draw consensus.  Finally, your primary goal must be to turn public opinion in your favor through effective symbolic demonstration.

Let’s evaluate the action.  First, don’t alienate your base.  In this case, affected port workers and those that identify with blue collar workers.  There are a total of 5,734 trucks registered at the Port of Oakland, according to Chris Peterson, Chief Wharfinger. Many of these truck drivers missed out on essential daily wages during the port shut down.

From Wharfinger, a trucker named James, who declined to give his last name, is also an independent truck driver who works at the port of Oakland every day. He said a shutdown will simply back up the work for later in the week. “Right now I work 11 to 13 hours a day, but I will have to work 14 hours,” he said.

The Teamsters union, which is the largest transportation union in the country and has publicly supported the Occupy protesters in the past did not support the December port shutdown.

“If they shut down the port, then the truck drivers are not going to be working and they won’t get paid. The longshoremen who operate the cranes — they get paid whether the port is open or not,” explained Doug Bloch, the political director of Teamsters Joint Council 7 in Oakland. “It’s one thing to camp out on City Hall and it’s another thing to shut down global trade. We’re in support of going after the one percent, but we need to protect the 99 percent too,” said Bloch. 

Second, choose the right target for demonstration. “Export Products, Not Jobs” read one sign held at the Oakland port demonstration.  But the Port of Oakland is one of the leading export ports on the West Coast.  Roughly 57% of Oakland cargo represents U.S. exports, including farm products from the Central Valley. To protest imports, the logical target would be  the Southern California ports, Los Angeles and Long Beach.  Those ports were hardly affected by demonstrators because the container terminals there are scattered over miles of waterfront within the  massive San Pedro harbor.  Oakland was easily disrupted, but was the wrong target.

Next, demonstrations should unite, not split the movement.  Based on posts at Occupy Wall Street  website, the port demonstrations have caused a rift.  Examples:  From TechD, “It caused several of us to leave Occupy Seattle... the message was good... until this crap happened in California...All they did was hurt the workers, and that is sad...” From TechJunkie: “They're hourly workers. They missed shifts. They did not get paid. This movement cost workers money. Shutting down the port made it harder for members of the 99% to feed their kids.”  Dozens of others question the port action. 

And finally, to be effective, demonstrations should rally the general populace. 

Yet, on the same day of the port demonstrations, Gallup released a major poll. An overwhelming 64 percent of people surveyed said big government was the biggest threat to the country, compared to just 26 percent who said big business is their gravest concern, and 8 percent who picked big labor.  So, despite months of demonstrations, generally highly focused and broad based, Americans reserve their contempt for government.  Not ports, not even the banks. 

In summary, if the Occupy movement continues to be hijacked by special interest or splinter groups, they will lose what support they garnered by their persistence and message. 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- I had an existential "Occupy" moment last Friday.

While walking to a meeting in San Francisco's Financial District, I passed near a big demonstration in front of Wells Fargo Bank's California Street Headquarters. I knew something was up when I saw police were congregating three blocks away.

Then, as I got closer, I heard the chants. "Foreclose the banks," "Move Your Accounts."

They were organized and peaceful. The north side of normally busy California Street was blocked off, including the popular California Street cable car line. Many carried signs, all the same, and printed. It was an enthusiastic and orderly demonstration.

I went to my meeting, two doors down from the demonstration. I was early. So I picked up a magazine, the main newsletter for professional financial planners, "Investment News."

I read the first article about a poll in which over 50 percent of generally conservative financial planners supported the basic core protest of the Occupy WS movement.

But here's where it got interesting. Another article had this headline. "Best Short EVER! Ends up Costing Citicorp $285M."

It told how Citicorp, Inc. agreed to pay $285 million for betting that a $ 1 billion mortgage investment that they sold to investors, would fail. What's worse is that Citicorp helped pick half the mortgages they bet against and failed to tell the investors. This describes it graphically. On the day the transaction closed, an experienced trader wrote in an email that the portfolio was "dog sh*it" and "possibly the best short EVER!"

So, as I'm reading this I say to myself, the demonstrators outside got it right -- more than they could imagine. It wasn't just the foreclosures, bailouts and high executive salaries. Some financial institutions made huge profits bundling the bad mortgages and selling them to investors, then betting that the bundle would lose value.

It wasn't just Citicorp, Inc. The article also noted that giant Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. agreed in July 2010 to pay an astounding $550 million to resolve claims that it failed to tell investors in a mortgage-backed investment that a hedge fund was betting against and help select the underlying assets. JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed in June to pay $153.6 million to resolve similar claims. (There is no evidence that Wells Fargo Bank participated in this shorting scheme.)

After the meeting, I was heading out the door. The demonstration was gone. Not a trace, no trash, or signs or police.

But I passed a woman a block away. She was smiling, and carrying one of the signs over her shoulder. She wasn't a student. She was elderly; looked like a grandmother.

I had the article in my coat pocket. A minute or two later, I decided that I would try to catch up to her and give her the article. But she was gone.

I regretted missing her. I wanted her to know that after reading the article, my contempt had amped up for those institutions that profited from homeowners losing their homes, while making hundreds of millions of dollars betting against the bad mortgages. I wanted her to know I had greater respect for her and the others protesting the behavior of many of America's well known financial institutions who have profited handsomely over the last three years.

It was my existential experience of the Occupy movement. They had reached me -- an independent conservative. I was angry then, and am now.

(Originally posted by Bruzzone at Huffington Post/Elections 2012, October 11, 2011)

 SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- I know 2D politics. I was a political party leader, often labeled a conservative. In fact, I was a former chair of the San Francisco Republican Party. I've written hundreds of raw meat conservative articles, commented often in the press, and produced and hosted several TV public affairs programs here.

That changed with a speech I gave at a Republican Women Federated luncheon about a year ago.  In that speech I roundly criticized both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberal progressives. More importantly, I highlighted one of the largest and most powerful U.S. voting blocs -- the independent voter base. I noted that independent or 'declined to state' voters are rapidly increasing n all states. Rasmussen Reports estimates that 32% of all U.S. voters are unaffiliated.

My Republican audience was not pleased with my speech.

I realize now through that speech, I had moved beyond two-dimensional politics. I had entered a third dimension of American politics - one that includes the independent, non-partisan voters.

Let's take a look at independents. Independents despise party politics. They've fused the two political parties into one; they see Republicans and Democrats joined at the hip. They reject incumbents, and don't discriminate - they have the same contempt now for President Obama that they had for President Bush in 2008. They see cronyism among the Democrats (green industry loans, for example) and among Republicans (defense contracts).

For them, both parties have their political correctness and ideological addictions. Republicans have their Tea Party advocates; the Democrats embrace the 'Occupy Wall Street' activists. The parties protect their constituencies -- Republicans, the "haves" (no new taxes); Democrats, the "have-nots" (more taxes, more entitlement programs.)

Independents are just plain disgruntled. They're looking for solutions to basic problems.
Independents are also fickle, and vote irregularly, but they have decided most elections, even in San Francisco.

They represent a challenge for citizen journalists.

It's too easy to cover political demonstrations - whether it's Tea Party rallies at state capitols, or demonstrators camping near Wall Street. Visually, demonstrations are predictable: shouting crowds, tense police, batons swinging, and the arrested dragged to waiting police vans and buses. When you view demonstration videos in Cairo, Teheran, or New York, at G5 meetings and union marches, they're dramatic, yes, but unless there's a rare regime change (Egypt) demonstrations are political cul de sacs (Iran, 2009.) Note that in the case of Egypt, President Mubarak is out, but the military is in firm control with no elections in sight.

The real power rests with the silent majority -- the non-partisan voter who rarely attends demonstrations, ignores primary debates, and who is engrossed in his or her job (or is looking for a job.)

The 2008 presidential race was decided by independents, as will the 2012 race. Mainstream, alternative and citizen journalists must capture this nebulous, hidden American voter who wants answers, and finds two-dimensional politics boring, unproductive, and often irritating. A challenge, since most news and commentary slants either left or right.

That must change. It's no longer a Darwinian two-dimensional political matrix. We've entered a fusion of left and right, and beyond. A three-dimensional paradigm. If we ignore the elusive independent voter, we'll miss the new world of American political electoral power. We'll also miss the 'news.'

Last month it rose to 9.2%.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reports, with considerable less fanfare, U-6:  workers under-employed – part time workers, working even one hour a week, but seeking full time work.  The unemployment and under-employment rate last month reached 16% of American workers.

There’s a third less known rate:  the long term discouraged workers rate.  These are workers who have given up looking for work and have lost their unemployment benefits.   Taken together, the unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers reached 23% last month.

In other words: nearly one quarter of American workers ---roughly 25 million American workers--- are struggling with serious employment worries.

Besides these, 2012 presidential candidates should fear another large group of American workers, which I call the “nervously employed.”    

These are workers who fear their full time jobs could vanish:  a project terminated (e.g., Space Shuttle program), contracting out of operations (see below,) failure of a speculative venture, or falling sales (e.g.,RIM/Blackberry, 2,000 workers terminated.)

Take the BMW Parts distribution center in Ontario, California.  Their union, the Teamsters Union, was ready to negotiate concessions to extend the union contract.  Instead, in June, they were told the plant was closing down, after 40 years of uninterrupted operations.

“Of the employees to be laid off (according to a notice BMW sent the union), 27 are age 50 or older. The word that came most often to the lips of workers and their families I've talked to is ‘devastated,’” reported the LA Times.

These are the nervously employed:  not secure with their long term jobs, reading monthly about hundreds of thousands filing for unemployment benefits,  and watching the base unemployment rising, not dropping, as it did last month.

How many American workers make up the nervously employed?

Gallup conducted a poll late last month that sheds light on this.  

They asked worker to rate their employment situation.  The groups break down between those who said they were ‘thriving’ and those said their lives were worrisome.  There’s a surprising result.

Among those earning $90,000 or more, 59% said they were not thriving.  Overall, 42% of men, and 49% of women could not say they were thriving.  

Jobs and the economy were the issues in the last presidential race. Four years later, jobs and economy will be foremost in the minds of voters.  (Gallup reported last month only 31% thought the economy was improving.)

American workers – unemployed, under-employed, no longer looking for work, and especially the nervously employed --- want answers to this fundamental question:  how will you restore a robust economy that will bring us new jobs and new job security.  

SAN FRANCISCO, CA --- The overriding goal of every first term president is be a two-term president.  or this President, much more is at stake than personal achievement.  

As a former Harvard University constitutional law professor, he knows that a second term offers him the opportunity to change the Supreme Court for decades.  That would provide him a second major victory.  To stem off legal attempts to repeal his health care initiative—the measure which would mark his place in U.S. history.   But he has a third priority of winning re-election:  To use the fiscal crisis – which will only exacerbate in the next 24 months – to accomplish his pervasive goal, distributive justice.  

Plainly speaking, in two years,  he will argue that fiscal health requires higher taxes for  the wealthy, a significantly lower  defense budget,  and to transfer that wealth to support programs that aid the poor  -- The President remembers his roots.

In other words, President Obama, unlike many of his predecessors, looks forward to his second term to accomplish his main objectives.  No lame duck president, here.

The lame-duck session of Congress previews his strategy now and after 2012 should he be victorious.

First, a flash back.  In a previous article, I noted that Obama bucked his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and pushed for a omnibus and significant health care reform bill.  His chief of staff recommended a scaled down reform measure, concentrating on full coverage for children and the poor.  President Obama said no and he won.

In contrast, during the recent lame-duck session of Congress, Obama showed he understands political jujitsu, as well as President Clinton in 1994.  

Basic martial arts:  as the opponent thrusts forward, do not  oppose, “go with the flow.”  He yielded completely on taxes, extending the Bush tax cuts...but only for two years.  He received  a major concession from the Republicans...extended unemployment benefits.  He did push ahead, but was defeated on limited immigration reform, and the President abandoned carbon taxes (a politically clever move to leave that initiative to the EPA,  and that agency’s plans for carbon reduction regulations..again outsmarting the Republicans.)

He earned admiration from republicans and wasn’t hurt among his base.  Reuters reported that “among Democrats, 78 percent said Obama should be renominated as the party’s presidential candidate, while 19 percent said they wanted a different candidate. Those readings were the highest and lowest respectively since March 2010.”

Obama outsmarted the Republicans.

He compromised for now, because in two years, he and Nancy Pelosi hope to regain control of the House, then continue to enact his agenda.  

But then there’s the economy. 

Economic indicators are up.  Unemployment, consumer sentiment and housing foreclosures have not improved, in fact, grown worse.

If unemployment and consumer/voter sentiment don’t improve by 2012, then President Obama will have outsmarted himself, and be a one term president.

First, it takes a mega political party to win in a state of 37 million and 156,000 square miles. California is a $1.85 trillion GDP nation-state. Each major California region would outsize many U.S. states - Los Angeles Metro, the Inland Valley, the northern and southern Central Valley, San Diego Metro area, and the San Francisco-Sacramento region.

The Democrats have built an elaborate corporate-style political organization. They have adapted to California's size, changing demographics, and income disparities. They've instituted a strong party chair who heads the party until voted out. The political staff is professional and battle-tested. Most important, the party thrives in a symbiotic relation with the state's powerful government workers' unions - nurses, prison guards, the government bureaucracy, and teachers.

On the other hand, the California Republican Party uses an archaic, 80's, party chair system. The chair rotates every two years between the North and South. Staff changes constantly. This rule originated in a long-standing ideological division back when Reagan conservatives were in their prime and distrusted liberal Bay Area Republicans. The republicans' North-South rivalry has led to a weak party organization. Ideology still precedes pragmatics. ]

The result: The Democrats are led by a veteran political street fighter, former Congressman John Burton. While the California Republican Party is set to choose a journalist from Northern California as its next state chair.

Second, the Democrats have mastered branding techniques-to the Republicans deficit. They have effectively demonized the Republican brand, thanks in part to union support, and thanks in part to poor counter-attack by the Republicans.

For example, Meg Whitman's campaign for governor was derailed by revelations of a shaky relationship with a former employee, Nicandra Diaz Santillan. Whitman frequently accused Democratic rival Jerry Brown, Jr. or his allies in organized labor of being behind her former housekeeper's emergence. That's the case. It was revealed that the California Nurses Association helped Diaz get onto the Democrats radar screen. Whitman's political team was ill prepared and the candidate never recovered.

Third, the Democrats stress the key to long term success --- team building. They stock and nurture their farm teams. Democrat candidates move up the ladder based on their performance at the local and county level -- even Governor-elect Jerry Brown, Jr., served as mayor of Oakland, CA. The Republicans too often rely on free agency for candidates -- billionaire candidates with no political or governance experience, but with a huge personal bankroll.

At this point, California's single party rule will change only if the Democrats falter and fail to solve the state's fiscal crisis. Then they'll suffer the same fate as Democrats in other states last November. Since the Democrats failed to lift the nation out of economic morass and piled up $2 trillion new debt in the process, they were punished.

The Democrats are betting that economic recovery will come sooner, and they'll be able to avoid necessary reforms, and all will be golden in the Golden State.

If the Democrats in California fail to solve the state's deep structural problems and the state eventually goes bankrupt as many predict, then the political tsunami that hit the nation in November will reach California.

In that case voters may turn to the Republican Party candidates -- but only if the California GOP modernizes, hires an agile permanent political staff, builds a farm team, and emphasizes solutions not ideology. If not, California will remain a single-party state.

via bruzzone.typepad.com

From "The Hill's Blog Briefing Room":

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) on Wednesday warned Republicans not to underestimate Democrats this fall.

DeLay, fresh off having the Justice Department drop a federal investigation against him, said GOP wins in the midterm elections aren't "a given" due to the strength of the grassroots infrastructure Democrats built in 2006 and 2008.

"Over the last ten years, the Democrats, particularly the Democrats in the House, have put together one of the most powerful grassroots coalitions that I've ever seen," DeLay said during an appearance on Fox News. "So it's not a given that the Republicans are going to win all these seats this year, because the Democrats have had a grassroots organization to help stave off a lot of their losses."

DeLay was a top campaign strategist for Republicans during his time in office. He helped build up the GOP's infrastructure through a prolific fundraising machine and close alliances with grassroots conservative groups.

DeLay said it was "hypocritical" for Democrats to plead for money from donors when they were characterizing their efforts as cash-strapped, but warned fellow Republicans not to discount Democrats' ground game.

"It helped them win in 2006 and in 2008," he said. "And it's a new campaign paradigm, where they go in with grassroots people, go door to door, canvass the entire district and pump in unlimited amounts of money."

Following Bernanke’s testimony before Congress, the markets saw a flood of high earnings reports from America’s largest corporations, but matched with poor unemployment figures, and rising home foreclosures, as reported Thursday.

Here’s what’s ‘unusual’: The natural healing power of the markets that would normally be revitalizing the job market.

You remember Chauncey Gardener in the movie"Being There". A modest estate gardener finds himself giving advice to the president of the United States. Calmly he assures the president that the economy is like the seasons; spring always follows winter.

Not currently, Mr. Gardener.

Bernanke’s ‘uncertainty’ comes from new uncertain burdens placed on small and large businesses by recent legislation.

Health care reform, for example, would have been a noble and perhaps a necessary debate in a robust economy. But not now. Not after a near economic meltdown.

Already several new reporting requirements buried in the health care reform bill are under being reconsidered.

Small business owners have curtailed hiring. Entrepreneurs have no idea how massive new regulations will impact knew workers, let alone, their existing employees.

So we have America’s huge multinationals reporting higher earnings which drove the stock market upward in July. But those higher earnings are due in part to rigid curtailing of costs, including layoffs and restrictive hiring. Modest revenue plus lower costs leads to higher earnings.

New ‘uncertain’ regulations and the threat of higher taxes, have discouraged companies, big and small, from hiring. Spring should have arrived for America’s unemployed by now.

Watch in the next ninety days, as the fall elections approach. The stock market will reflect a new optimism that political sanity will again flourish in Congress. More ‘certainty’, less surprising legislation.

Hopefully, with balance and less politically charges tampering with the economy, companies can begin considering hiring again, and spring will indeed follow winter.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- Senate Republicans got ensnarled by the Democrats over the extended unemployment benefits bill.

So did I. In both cases, it was a failure of communication, not principle.

In my case I was a guest last week on the PBS radio series, “KQED-Forum”. I was told we would discuss the two wars, the economy, and deficits.

The hour program discussion, however, began and continued for a time on the Republican’s success in delaying a final vote on extending unemployment benefits.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the GOP action. I alluded Republican Senator Thune's deficit-neutral amendment to the main motion which failed.

The two other guests, Amy Sullivan, a political contributor to TIME, the other Robert Scheer, a well known liberal journalist, hammered me.

I was as heartless as the Republicans to ignore the long term unemployed, they implied.

Looking back on the discussion, I knew that I had framed my position ineffectively. But, so did the Senate Republicans.

Making a stand against unemployment benefits may have been a tactical victory -- the GOP Senators could tell their constituents back home over the Fourth that they stood up to the fiscal drunk Democrats.

However, I watched various business programs this week on CNBC and “The Nightly Business Report” (PBS). I also listened to the President in his remarks on the issue.

I see now that the Democrats were planning to use the Senate Republicans’ action against them. And, they have successfully.

The case against extending benefits are indeed cold logic and dispassionate, like Arthur Laffer's argument in the Wall Street Journal.  The reality is that the argument against borrowing to pay unemployment benefits can’t compete with the media’s profiling of actual individuals out of work for over 99 weeks, as we have seen this week.

In the end, it was probably a tactical error, not a victory for the Republicans.

They Republicans knew the bill would be passed.

They hoped stalling the measure would win points with the voters concerned about the deficit. It was a political stunt and it backfired. It may come back to haunt Republicans in November, not significantly, but it will have some impact.

Despite this victory, the Democrats have very little political ammo to prevent a serious rout in November.

Remember they promised a 7.5% unemployment rate by the fall as a result of the $1 trillion stimulus package -- in that case the unemployment benefits would be not be a major issue.