Perfect storm

Of course, if the Dems win, we’ll have to fight them just as hard – maybe harder:

As Zuccotti Park’s protesters prepare for winter, determined to carry the Occupy Wall Street movement’s message through the cold season and beyond, a perfect political storm is forming that might help Democrats keep the White House in 2012 – despite stubbornly high unemployment and a frustratingly slow economic recovery.

The storm stems from the OWS movement’s growing popular appeal, as a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds that an overwhelming majority of Americans (over three quarters) think the country’s current economic structure “favors a very small portion of the rich over the rest of the country” – echoing the protesters’ calls to reduce the power of major banks and end tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

The finding comes after a new census measure found that a new record number of Americans (49.1 million) now live in poverty, after accounting for rising medical costs and other expenses. In addition, a Congressional Budget Office study recently corroborated the historic exacerbation of the country’s income inequality (or widening gap between the so-called 1% and 99%). Both developments are likely to stir new debate over changes to Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that assist the poor as a congressional Super Committee approaches the November 23 deadline to make cuts of over $1 trillion to the federal budget.