Occupy Wall Street’s latest brainchild: “First in the Nation Caucus Occupation”

Members of the Occupy Iowa movement have launched a new operation, the “First in the Nation Caucus Occupation.” It’s exactly what it sounds like: A move to effectively shut down the Iowa caucuses, to bombard the Iowa campaign offices of presidential candidates and to force those who want to win the White House to talk solutions to the overblown problem of income inequality in this country. From Politico:

“You go inside or if they won’t let you in, you shut ‘em down. You sit in front of their doors,” Frank Cordaro of Des Moines, the man credited for the idea of the “First in the Nation Caucus Occupation,” told the Register. “Who knows? It could be a very big deal.”

The plan, Cordaro told CNN, is, “people coming to Iowa, occupying every presidential [candidate’s] office, shutting them down until they start talking real turkey about what’s going on in this country, where the 99 percent of the people who are not benefiting, at the expense of the 1 percent who are getting away with murder.”

Cordaro’s idea was voted on and approved by the Occupy Iowa’s general assembly Monday night, according to the Register.

The vision, then, is not merely for Iowan Occupiers to occupy campaign headquarters, but also to make Iowa a pilgrimage destination for Occupiers of other cities. The call for reinforcements in Iowa might come at just the right time, as cold tests the mettle of East Coast Occupiers and a legal battle threatens Occupy Londoners. It also provides a handy alternate headline to the recent troubling accounts of the sexual harassment and even rape that goes unreported at Occupy sites. Given the probable appetite for something “new” among Occupiers, then, Cordaro very well might be right about one thing: The “First in the Nation Caucus Occupation” could ultimately be a very big deal.

Yet, Iowa Republican Chairman Matt Strawn seems relatively unconcerned about this latest brainchild of “the 99 percent.” He told Politico the idea amounts to “a mere publicity stunt.” He also pointed out the irony of an OWS takeover of “the most grassroots-oriented process in national politics.”

Strawn has a point. Plus, the details of the sit-ins have yet to be determined and Occupiers aren’t exactly known for attention to detail or specificity of demands. Ed Fallon, the organizer of Occupy Iowa, told The Des Moines Register that “the idea is to basically take over until we get response to our satisfaction or we are forcibly removed.” Unless the Iowan Occupiers surprise me and actually define what a satisfactory response from candidates would look and sound like, the latter option seems the more likely outcome to me.

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