Will Occupy Wall Street Play a Role in the 2012 Election?

… and also anarchists manning a “Vote Nobody 2012″ booth (click for full size):

Everyone agrees that Occupy has put wealth inequality and Wall Street corruption closer to the center of the national political discourse than it was six weeks ago. That in itself will have an impact on the presidential race. But it would be neither wise nor effective for the young movement to try to play the inside game of presidential politics, argue some participants.

“If things are going to shift, my take is that sustained organizing around issues and being a squeaky wheel has a shot. Organizing around candidates, parties, elections will not do it,” says Bill Dobbs, a member of Occupy’s press team and a longtime New York activist. “That means not ignoring electoral politics or the people in power but keeping them jumping. Staying at an arm’s length rather than discovering that kiss on the cheek from a politician quickly turns into a suffocating bear hug.”

There are at least three Occupy working groups in New York that are focused on how to interact with policy and the electoral politics.

The demands working group is focused on coming up with policy goals that could, in theory, lead Occupy Wall Street to narrow its focus and pressure candidates to support specific legislative priorities during the election. But the demands group’s first proposal, for a massive public works program that would lead to full employment, went nowhere late last month when it was broughtbefore the general assembly. Some people expressed hostility to the very idea of demands.

There is also a politics and electoral reform group. On Sunday it came to consensus on a document calling for experimentation with various reforms “to curtail the influence of corporations and narrow political factions over our system of government,” according to T.J. Frawls, a 33-year-old Harlem man who is a member of the group. Between 30 and 35 people attended that meeting, held at 60 Wall Street, he says. The group now plans to bring the document — which mentions ideas like ballot access reform, proportional representation, and making Election Day a national holiday — before the general assembly at Zuccotti Park to see if Occupy Wall Street as a whole will endorse the idea.