If one were to appear from a Rip Van Winkle long sleep and found themselves on Wall Street, New York or the steps of the art gallery in Vancouver, they would no doubt diagnose a protest and wonder what was being protested. The answer from the local cop on the beat would no doubt be “damned if I know!”

“Well, then, officer, who are they … they look a little older than how I remember them to be”. 

The policeman would likely agree. 

“Who, then, is their leader? 

“Buggered if I know – all the boys in the wardroom are asking these questions”

“But”, Rip would ask, “are drugs involved?” “Do you see signs of violence?” “How do they get food and shelter”? 

Puzzled by the shrug of the policeman’s shoulders Rip decides the world has gone mad and tucks in for another 20 year snooze. 

I spoke at the Occupation in Vancouver and due to a screw-up in scheduling (Occupy is not big on discipline) I had time to watch what was happening for quite awhile and I was just as perplexed as Rip was.

Speeches were given by people who, despite saying at the outset said they weren’t leaders, started to get consensuses on various issues involved, such as food and shelter. Although one sit-in died of an overdose, but drugs, didn’t seem to be any worse than in any other large number of young people.

In my short speech I said “if you who will travel hundreds of KMs to protest would cross the street to vote you might accomplish something”.

There have been, over the centuries, disaffected people who have protested, often violently, yet they always had an issue for which there was a solution. 

The French and Russian Revolutions come to mind as being similar to the Occupy Movement, if that it can be called, as being an expressions of widespread disaffection with no leadership (originally) with this distinction – they were bloody and arose when the “Establishments” were corrupt and ready to be toppled whereupon leaders appeared.

There are three big elections on the horizon, namely the French, Germen and American – and possibly in the UK – the question is what impact, if any, the Occupations will have?

That sort of question is usually answered by the presence of an appropriate political party whose importance can be determined by the ubiquitous polls that clutter the minds of voters. Occupy is not an identifiable unit. 

There have been popular voter moments of note in the past; the Dixicrats (opposing civil rights for Blacks), in the US in 1948, the Poujardists in the fifties in France (against taxes); the Oswald Mosely led Blackshirts in prewar Britain; neo Nazis in Germany and Austria of recent times, to name a few. 

The distinction between these movements and Occupy is that they had clearly distinguishable party platforms and recognizable and usually charismatic leaders like Jean-Marie Le Pen and Adolph Hitler to draw voters to their platform. While they may have appealed to fringe minorities all have or had a mantra and someone to sing it. 

In parliamentary democracies based on proportional representation there is a much better chance for a minority to get into the legislature. For those in a Westminster style of governance with a first past the post voting system, it’s impossible. Because I’m not as familiar with the German and French systems, I’ll confine my thoughts from here on to what I sense will be happening in the United States– a synthesis of both systems – in 2012. 

The US system makes it especially hard even for intelligent pundits (an oxymoron?) to make sense of political campaigns. US politics is especially mysterious because of the innumerable streams of political interests clashing in the three timetables that run in the system – the presidential term is four years, the House of Representatives two years and the Senate four. 

This means that there are three elections unless your state is also having its election in which case there are four. I mention all this because to this a political prognosis in an electoral system of many complications, such as the fact that cross voting, as for example for a Republican Congressman and a Democratic President is by no means rare..

Now, having made my apologies for getting it wrong – as all pundits do – let’s look more closely at the US election as it unfolds.

This foundation must be laid – there is a huge disconnect between those governing and those on the receiving end.

This in itself is not unusual – what is different is that the “establishment” has seen the middle class greatly diminish creating a sort of drifting class of those who are no longer part of their former class yet unwilling to move down to the designation of “have-nots”. 

They have, I think, become ex officio Occupiers with no desire to be so designated but along with the Occupiers, provide a great potential election pool. 

This is no problem in a tactical sense to the Republicans whose power base is the well off, the wannabe upper class and southern whites. Their problem is the rightwing Tea Party which, with no regard to what actually happened, blames the Democrats for the Recession and wants their party, the Republicans, to fix the problem by cutting taxes to the under taxed rich.

For President Obama to be re-elected he needs more than traditional Democrats to capture enough of the Big States such as California, New York, Michigan, and Florida to win. And, these states happen to be where the Occupy “lack of movement” lives and must be wooed. Remember, the president is elected by an Electoral College based not on popular votes but state votes – to use a golf term, its match play, not medal. 

Can he do it? 

If he stays on message – Iraq and Afghanistan were the fault of the Republicans as was the rise of the gluttony of the Wall Street bonus grabbers; if he pledges improved social spending and improve Medicare. He hits Occupy’s issues. 

Here’s is the main point of it all – I believe that the “young left” will get out and vote because they see with their own eyes what an impact they had as a “non movement”.

I suspect this is so in other countries, but the USA with its direct source of power in the presidency and only with only two main candidates, makes voting a tasty temptation, not an irrelevant act for the better off. 

“Occupy” will give President Obama a second term.