All but two candidates had declined to participate in Trump’s December 27 forum in Iowa.

Some Republicans worried the showboating Trump, star of NBC’s “The Apprentice” program where he is known for his catch phrase “You’re fired,” could make the event all about him.

As a result only former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has surged to the front of the Republican field in recent weeks, and former Senator Rick Santorum were planning to attend.

“I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate,” Trump said in a statement. “Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate.”

The debate was to be sponsored by the Newsmax website and broadcast on the Ion cable television network. It was to come at a time when Americans are busy with holidays but less than a week before the key January 3 caucus in Iowa and the first primary in New Hampshire on January 10.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Texas Governor Rick Perry and U.S. Representatives Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann had said they would not attend the debate.

“I would like to thank Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for having the courage, conviction, and confidence to immediately accept being a part of the Newsmax debate,” Trump said.

“I believe this would not only have been the most watched debate, but also the most substantive and interesting debate!”

Several of the Republican candidates have met with Trump in hopes of winning his support but many party members mused aloud that a debate hosted by Trump would not reflect well on the party. A campaign spokesman for Paul said that Trump moderating a debate would result in “an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.”

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for Republican President George W. Bush, said on Twitter that Trump moderating a debate was absurd.

Earlier this year Trump flirted with a run for the Republican 2012 presidential nomination and was derided for pushing a discredited charge that President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States.

Although the resulting publicity yielded significant support for Trump in some polls, he never mounted an actual campaign and critics suggested it was all self-promotion.

Trump eventually decided not to pursue the Republican nomination but recently has said he still might run as an independent.

(Reporting by Mark Egan, editing by Jackie Frank)

Trump also issued a statement saying he still might run for the White House as an independent if he does not approve of the eventual Republican nominee.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has surged to the front of the Republican field in recent weeks, and former Senator Rick Santorum are now the only candidates planning to participate in Trump’s December 27 forum in Iowa.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Texas Governor Rick Perry and U.S. Representatives Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann have said they will not attend the debate, throwing the event into question.

Several of the Republican candidates have met with Trump in hopes of winning his support but many party members worry the showboating Trump, star of NBC’s “The Apprentice” program where he is known for his catch phrase “You’re fired,” could make the debate all about him.

Trump, who is promoting his latest book, said some Republican candidates want assurances from him that he will not mount an independent run once his reality TV shows completes its season at the end of May. But, he said, “I must leave all of my options open.”

Earlier on Fox Business Network’s “Imus in the Morning”- show, Trump was asked if the event will go ahead and replied, “I don’t know. I have to look into it.”

Earlier this year Trump flirted with a run for the Republican 2012 presidential nomination and was derided for pushing a discredited charge that Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States.

Although the resulting publicity yielded significant support for Trump in some polls, he never mounted an actual campaign and critics suggested it was all self promotion.

Trump eventually decided not to pursue the Republican nomination but recently has said he still might run as an independent.

“It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama administration,” he said in statement Friday. “But if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am unwilling to give up my right to run as an independent candidate.”

The debate will be sponsored by the Newsmax website and broadcast on the Ion cable television network. It comes at a time when Americans are busy with holidays but less than a week before the key January 3 caucus in Iowa and the first primary in New Hampshire on January 10.

A campaign spokesman for Paul said that Trump moderating a debate would result in “an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.”

Republican strategists in Washington worried that by participating in the debate, candidates would appear foolish or out-of-touch with voters.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for Republican President George W. Bush, said on Twitter that Trump moderating a debate was absurd. Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove urged the Republican National Committee to call on Trump to cancel the event.

(Reporting by Mark Egan; Editing by Michelle Nichols and Bill Trott)

(This story corrects the name of Fox program in seventh paragraph)

Trump also issued a statement saying he still might run for the White House as an independent if he does not approve of the eventual Republican nominee.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has surged to the front of the Republican field in recent weeks, and former Senator Rick Santorum are now the only candidates planning to participate in Trump’s December 27 forum in Iowa.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Texas Governor Rick Perry and Representatives Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann have said they will not attend the debate, throwing the event into question.

Several of the Republican candidates have met with Trump in hopes of winning his support but many party members worry the showboating Trump, star of NBC’s “The Apprentice” program where he is known for his catch phrase “You’re fired,” could make the debate all about him.

Trump, who is promoting his latest book, said some Republican candidates want assurances from him that he will not mount an independent run once his reality TV shows completes its season at the end of May. But, he said, “I must leave all of my options open.”

Earlier on Fox Business News’ “Imus in the Morning”- show, Trump was asked if the event will go ahead and replied, “I don’t know. I have to look into it.”

Earlier this year Trump flirted with a run for the Republican 2012 presidential nomination and was derided for pushing a discredited charge that President Barack Obama might not have been born in the United States.

Although the resulting publicity yielded significant support for Trump in some polls, he never mounted an actual campaign and critics suggested it was all self promotion.

Trump eventually decided not to pursue the Republican nomination but recently has said he still might run as an independent.

“It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama administration,” he said in statement Friday. “But if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am unwilling to give up my right to run as an independent candidate.”

The debate will be sponsored by the Newsmax website and broadcast on the Ion cable television network. It comes at a time when Americans are busy with holidays but less than a week before the key January 3 caucus in Iowa and the first primary in New Hampshire on January 10.

A campaign spokesman for Paul said that Trump moderating a debate would result in “an unwanted circus-like atmosphere.”

Republican strategists in Washington worried that by participating in the debate, candidates would appear foolish or out-of-touch with voters.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for Republican President George W. Bush, said on Twitter that Trump moderating a debate was absurd. Veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove urged the Republican National Committee to call on Trump to cancel the event.

But the sterling reputation he built during almost five
decades as head coach at Penn State University has been sullied
by allegations that a long-time assistant coach sexually abused
boys and school officials tried to cover it up.

Paterno, 84, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame,
said on Wednesday he would retire at the end of this season
amid a scandal so sordid it has been compared to the cases of
pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

A titan as a coach, Paterno is unrivaled by his peers for
the longevity of his success. Known for his thick glasses and
navy windbreaker, he promotes the lofty notion that football
players could excel on the field and in the classroom.

“Joe and (his wife) Sue are as close to deities as you can
get in this town,” said Nick Savereno, who attended Penn State
and owns a sandwich shop near the campus at State College, the
Pennsylvania town where he grew up.

The campus was in shock. Students cried, some were angry
and some called for the university president to resign.
Supporters left flowers at Paterno’s simple split-level home.

Amid it all, his football team prepared for the final home
game of the season on Saturday as they closed in on a place in
the first-ever Big Ten Championship game.

Underlining what a big presence Paterno is in U.S. college
football, the winner of the inaugural Big Ten final will get
the Stagg-Paterno Championship Trophy named after Paterno and
pioneering coach Amos Alonzo Stagg.

Fans of the Nittany Lions, named after mountain lions that
once roamed near State College and the landmark Mount Nittany,
would have wanted Paterno’s final game to be a celebration like
none in memory at Beaver Stadium.

Now it will likely end with Paterno’s final, unassuming
walk off the field.

Such is the hoopla surrounding the team and its coach that
students camp out at Beaver Stadium before home games in what
locals call “Paternoville.”

“I think that he really, really, really loves the school
and he would do anything for the kids and for the team,” said
Gabby Laura, 18. “I support him completely. I’m really sad to
see him go.”

As one of America’s premier state colleges, Penn State uses
Paterno’s image to help attract the best students and his
likeness on its literature to convince alumni and donors to
support their programs.

With 409 victories at Penn State, Paterno has won more
games in big-time college football than any other coach in the
history of a sport dating back to the late 19th century. Only a
handful of other coaches, such as the late Paul “Bear” Bryant
of the University of Alabama, are held in such reverence.

Paterno has been head coach at Penn State since 1966 — an
incredible 46 seasons. But he has become increasingly frail and
now coaches from the press box rather than the sidelines.

A beloved institution in Pennsylvania, he won national
championships in 1982 and 1986 and survived calls that he leave
the post because of his advanced age.

“Success with Honor” is the motto of Paterno’s football
program, which boasts high graduation rates among players.

SANDUSKY SCANDAL

Paterno’s former long-time assistant coach Jerry Sandusky
is accused of sexually abusing at least eight boys over a
period of more than a decade. Two other university officials
are charged with not reporting an incident in 2002 when
Sandusky allegedly was seen sexually assaulting a child.

Lawyers for the men have said they maintain their
innocence.

Paterno, who does not face any charges and was not a target
of the criminal investigation, said he was informed of an
incident involving Sandusky in 2002 and passed the information
up the chain of command to the university’s athletic director.

Paterno has been criticized for not following up or doing
more to address the allegations.

“This is a tragedy,” he said in his retirement statement.
“It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of
hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

“I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this
case. I grieve for the children and their families and I pray
for their comfort and relief,” he said.

The New York Times wrote that if Penn State were the
Catholic Church, Paterno would be the Pope, surely aware of
what was happening and enabling the cover-up.

“With his effective silence, Paterno was protecting not
only himself but also 50 years of mythology that had been
building up around him since he arrived at Penn State as an
assistant during the Truman administration,” The Times wrote.

Born in Brooklyn, Paterno played football at Brown
University from 1946-49 before joining Penn State as an
assistant coach in 1950. Sixteen years later he began building
his prodigious resume as head coach.

Paterno steered the Nittany Lions to seven undefeated
regular seasons and Penn State claimed three Big Ten Conference
titles — one solo in 1994 and as co-winners in 2005 and 2008.

He is also the all-time leader among college coaches with
24 post-season wins in 37 bowl game appearances and is the only
coach to win the Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange bowls.

His team struggled in 2003. When he said he would consider
retirement if his 2005 team did not improve, the Nittany Lions
responded with an 11-1 record.

Paterno’s program was known for churning out stars who went
on to play in the National Football League. On his watch, Penn
State produced 78 first-team All-Americans — among them 10
linebackers coached by Sandusky at the school that became known
as “Linebacker U.”

More than 350 of Paterno’s players have signed NFL
contracts, with 32 of them drafted in the first round.

Paterno was also known for his philanthropy, giving more
than $4 million to Penn State for scholarships, faculty
endowments and construction.

He was voted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006
but his induction ceremony was delayed a year so he could
recover from injuries suffered in a sideline collision.

But the sterling reputation he built during almost five decades as head coach at Penn State University has been sullied by allegations that a long-time assistant coach sexually abused boys and school officials tried to cover it up.

Paterno, 84, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, said on Wednesday he would retire at the end of this season amid a scandal so sordid it has been compared to the cases of pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

A titan as a coach, Paterno is unrivaled by his peers for the longevity of his success. Known for his thick glasses and navy windbreaker, he promotes the lofty notion that football players could excel on the field and in the classroom.

“Joe and (his wife) Sue are as close to deities as you can get in this town,” said Nick Savereno, who attended Penn State and owns a sandwich shop near the campus at State College, the Pennsylvania town where he grew up.

The campus was in shock. Students cried, some were angry and some called for the university president to resign. Supporters left flowers at Paterno’s simple split-level home.

Amid it all, his football team prepared for the final home game of the season on Saturday as they closed in on a place in the first-ever Big Ten Championship game.

Underlining what a big presence Paterno is in U.S. college football, the winner of the inaugural Big Ten final will get the Stagg-Paterno Championship Trophy named after Paterno and pioneering coach Amos Alonzo Stagg.

Fans of the Nittany Lions, named after mountain lions that once roamed near State College and the landmark Mount Nittany, would have wanted Paterno’s final game to be a celebration like none in memory at Beaver Stadium.

Now it will likely end with Paterno’s final, unassuming walk off the field.

Such is the hoopla surrounding the team and its coach that students camp out at Beaver Stadium before home games in what locals call “Paternoville.”

“I think that he really, really, really loves the school and he would do anything for the kids and for the team,” said Gabby Laura, 18. “I support him completely. I’m really sad to see him go.”

As one of America’s premier state colleges, Penn State uses Paterno’s image to help attract the best students and his likeness on its literature to convince alumni and donors to support their programs.

With 409 victories at Penn State, Paterno has won more games in big-time college football than any other coach in the history of a sport dating back to the late 19th century. Only a handful of other coaches, such as the late Paul “Bear” Bryant of the University of Alabama, are held in such reverence.

Paterno has been head coach at Penn State since 1966 — an incredible 46 seasons. But he has become increasingly frail and now coaches from the press box rather than the sidelines.

A beloved institution in Pennsylvania, he won national championships in 1982 and 1986 and survived calls that he leave the post because of his advanced age.

“Success with Honor” is the motto of Paterno’s football program, which boasts high graduation rates among players.

SANDUSKY SCANDAL

Paterno’s former long-time assistant coach Jerry Sandusky is accused of sexually abusing at least eight boys over a period of more than a decade. Two other university officials are charged with not reporting an incident in 2002 when Sandusky allegedly was seen sexually assaulting a child.

Lawyers for the men have said they maintain their innocence.

Paterno, who does not face any charges and was not a target of the criminal investigation, said he was informed of an incident involving Sandusky in 2002 and passed the information up the chain of command to the university’s athletic director.

Paterno has been criticized for not following up or doing more to address the allegations.

“This is a tragedy,” he said in his retirement statement. “It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more.”

“I am absolutely devastated by the developments in this case. I grieve for the children and their families and I pray for their comfort and relief,” he said.

The New York Times wrote that if Penn State were the Catholic Church, Paterno would be the Pope, surely aware of what was happening and enabling the cover-up.

“With his effective silence, Paterno was protecting not only himself but also 50 years of mythology that had been building up around him since he arrived at Penn State as an assistant during the Truman administration,” The Times wrote.

Born in Brooklyn, Paterno played football at Brown University from 1946-49 before joining Penn State as an assistant coach in 1950. Sixteen years later he began building his prodigious resume as head coach.

Paterno steered the Nittany Lions to seven undefeated regular seasons and Penn State claimed three Big Ten Conference titles — one solo in 1994 and as co-winners in 2005 and 2008.

He is also the all-time leader among college coaches with 24 post-season wins in 37 bowl game appearances and is the only coach to win the Rose, Sugar, Cotton and Orange bowls.

His team struggled in 2003. When he said he would consider retirement if his 2005 team did not improve, the Nittany Lions responded with an 11-1 record.

Paterno’s program was known for churning out stars who went on to play in the National Football League. On his watch, Penn State produced 78 first-team All-Americans — among them 10 linebackers coached by Sandusky at the school that became known as “Linebacker U.”

More than 350 of Paterno’s players have signed NFL contracts, with 32 of them drafted in the first round.

Paterno was also known for his philanthropy, giving more than $4 million to Penn State for scholarships, faculty endowments and construction.

He was voted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006 but his induction ceremony was delayed a year so he could recover from injuries suffered in a sideline collision.

(With reporting from State College by Ian Simpson and Edith Honan; Editing by Will Dunham and John O’Callaghan)

The mayor said there were sexual assaults and a possible rape at the protesters’ gathering place in Zuccotti Park.

“There have been reports, which are equally as disturbing, that when people in Zuccotti Park become aware of crimes, instead of calling the police, they form a circle around the perpetrator,” Bloomberg said.

People in the park then “chastise him or her and chase him or her out into the rest of the city to do who knows what to who knows whom,” the major said.

Bloomberg called that “despicable and … outrageous” behavior which makes “all of us less safe.”

An Occupy Wall Street kitchen worker has been charged with sexually abusing an 18-year-old activist in her tent. Bloomberg said the man was also a suspect in a rape at Zuccotti Park.

Protesters set up camp in the park in mid-September to protest a financial system they believe mostly benefits corporations and the wealthy. Similar protests against economic inequality have since sprouted globally.

A growing chorus of residents, politicians and newspapers is pressing Bloomberg to clean up the park. They complain that the proliferation of tents has spurred crime, sexual assaults, drug dealing and mischief.

And two polls showed support for the protests waning.

Police made three arrests on Thursday at Zuccotti Park on charges of loitering and resisting arrest.

The New York Post ran a front page editorial under the headline “ENOUGH! Mr. Mayor, it is time to reclaim Zuccotti Park — and New York City’s dignity.”

BACKLASH AGAINST PROTEST GROWS

The Post urged Bloomberg to evict the protesters. The protesters cannot be removed unless the park owner complains.

“Occupy Wall Street has its own well-trained internal security force, but this team does not substitute for the police when it comes to criminal activity that threatens our community or local residents, ” Andrew Smith, described as a member of OWS’ overnight Community Watch, said in a statement.

“Occupy Wall Street participants have called upon police on occasions when people with predatory intentions have come into the park and engaged in illegal and destructive behavior, and have in fact turned over criminals to the NYPD,” Smith said.

“The Mayor should get his facts straight before he calls responsible citizens protecting our community ‘despicable.’”

Protester Bill Dobbs said while Bloomberg as mayor wants to honor freedom of speech, “as a billionaire, he’s under constant temptation to squelch protest.”

Bloomberg’s comments came after police in Oakland, California, clashed with protesters overnight.

A Quinnipiac University poll on Thursday showed 39 percent of U.S. voters have an unfavorable view of Occupy Wall Street and 30 percent favor it. The October 25-31 survey of 2,294 registered voters had an error margin 2.1 percentage points.

A Marist Poll found 50 percent of registered New York state voters oppose the protests and 44 percent support them. That survey of 1,030 people had a 3.5-point error margin.

Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin, an expert on social movements, said Bloomberg might be prompted to end the encampment in Manhattan after the violence in Oakland, “if he is looking for an excuse.”

But Kazin, co-editor of Dissent magazine, said it does not ultimately matter when the New York protests end because they have already “changed the conversation about economic inequality in the country.”

(Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz, editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Doina Chiacu and Todd Eastham)

The mayor said there were sexual assaults and a possible rape at the protesters’ gathering place in Zuccotti Park.

“There have been reports, which are equally as disturbing, that when people in Zuccotti Park become aware of crimes, instead of calling the police, they form a circle around the perpetrator, chastise him or her and chase him or her out into the rest of the city to do who knows what to who knows whom,” the major said.

Bloomberg called that “despicable and … outrageous” behavior which makes “all of us less safe.”

An Occupy Wall Street kitchen worker has been charged with sexually abusing an 18-year-old protester in her tent. Bloomberg said the same person was also a suspect in a rape at Zuccotti Park.

Protesters set up camp in the park in mid-September to protest a financial system they believe mostly benefits corporations and the wealthy. Similar protests against economic inequality have since sprouted globally.

There is a growing chorus of residents, politicians and newspapers pressing Bloomberg to clean up the park. They complain that the proliferation of tents has spurred crime, sexual assaults, drug dealing and mischief. And two polls showed support for the protests waning.

Police made three arrests on Thursday at Zuccotti Park on charges of loitering and resisting arrest.

The New York Post ran a front page editorial under the headline “ENOUGH! Mr. Mayor, it is time to reclaim Zuccotti Park — and New York City’s dignity.”

The Post urged Bloomberg to evict the protesters. The protesters cannot be removed unless the park owner complains.

Occupy Wall Street protesters dismissed the mayor’s words.

“The mayor (has) made it clear that he wants to get us out of here,” said protest spokesman Jeff Smith.

Protester Bill Dobbs said while Bloomberg as mayor wants to honor freedom of speech, “as a billionaire, he’s under constant temptation to squelch protest.”

Bloomberg’s comments came after police in Oakland, California, clashed with protesters overnight.

A Quinnipiac University poll on Thursday showed 39 percent of U.S. voters have an unfavorable view of Occupy Wall Street and 30 percent favor it. The October 25-31 survey of 2,294 registered voters had an error margin 2.1 percentage points.

A Marist Poll found 50 percent of registered New York state voters oppose the protests and 44 percent support them. That survey of 1,030 people had a 3.5-point error margin.

Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin, an expert on social movements, said Bloomberg might be prompted to end the encampment in Manhattan after the violence in Oakland, “if he is looking for an excuse.”

But Kazin, who is co-editor of Dissent magazine, said it does not ultimately matter when the New York protests end because they have already “changed the conversation about economic inequality in the country.” (Additional reporting by Ben Berkowitz, editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Doina Chiacu)

Limbaugh summed up the chatter when he told his listeners last week, “George Soros money is behind this.”

Soros spokesman Michael Vachon said that Soros has not “funded the protests directly or indirectly.” He added: “Assertions to the contrary are an attempt by those who oppose the protesters to cast doubt on the authenticity of the movement.”

Soros has donated at least $3.5 million to an organization called the Tides Center in recent years, earmarking the funds for specific purposes. Tides has given grants to Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada whose inventive marketing campaign sparked the first demonstrations last month.

Vachon said Open Society specified what its donations could be used for. He said they were not general purpose funds to be used at the discretion of Tides — for example for grants to Adbusters. “Our grants to Tides were for other purposes.”

Tides declined to comment.

According to IRS disclosure documents from 2007-2009, the latest data available, Soros’ Open Society gave grants of $3.5 million to Tides, a San Francisco-based group that acts almost like a clearing house for other donors, directing their contributions to liberal non-profit groups. Among others the Tides Center has partnered with are the Ford Foundation and the Gates Foundation.

IRS disclosure documents and reports from Tides also show that Tides gave Adbusters grants of $185,000 from 2001-2010, including nearly $26,000 between 2007-2009.

The Vancouver-based Adbusters publishes a magazine with a circulation of 120,000 and is known for its spoofs of popular advertisements. It says it wants to “change the way corporations wield power” and its goal is “to topple existing power structures.”

Adbusters co-founder Kalle Lasn said the group is 95 percent funded by subscribers paying for the magazine.

“George Soros’s ideas are quite good, many of them. I wish he would give Adbusters some money, we sorely need it,” he said. “He’s never given us a penny.”

Adbusters may have sparked Occupy Wall Street but it is by no means in control of the disparate movement, with the protests now in their fourth week and spreading to cities across America. President Barack Obama, BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence Fink and Soros himself are among those who have expressed sympathy for the protesters’ frustration with high unemployment.

SHARED FRUSTRATION

“I can understand their sentiment,” Soros told reporters last week at the United Nations about the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which are expected to spur solidarity marches globally on Saturday. He declined to comment further.

Soros, 81, is No. 7 on the Forbes 400 list with a fortune of $22 billion, which has ballooned in recent years as he deftly responded to financial market turmoil. He has pledged to give away all his wealth, half of it while he earns it and the rest when he dies.

Like the protesters, Soros is no fan of the 2008 bank bailouts and subsequent government purchase of the toxic sub-prime mortgage assets they amassed in the property bubble.

The protesters say the Wall Street bank bailouts in 2008 left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from Washington. They contend that the richest 1 percent of Americans have amassed vast fortunes while being taxed at a lower rate than most people.

Soros in 2009 wrote in an editorial that the purchase of toxic bank assets would, “provide artificial life support for the banks at considerable expense to the taxpayer.”

He urged the Obama administration to take bolder action, either by recapitalizing or nationalizing the banks and forcing them to lend at attractive rates. His advice went unheeded.

The Hungarian-American was an early supporter of the 2008 election campaign of Barack Obama, who will seek a second term as president in the November, 2012, election. He has long backed liberal causes – the Open Society Institute, the foreign policy think tank Council on Foreign Relations and Human Rights Watch.

SLOW START

Adbusters, which publishes a magazine and runs such campaigns as “Digital Detox Week” and “Buy Nothing Day,” came up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, said Lasn, the 69-year-old co-founder of the group.

“It came out of these brainstorming sessions we have at Adbusters,” Lasn told Reuters, adding they began promoting it online on July 13. “We were inspired by what happened in Tunisia and Egypt and we had this feeling that America was ripe for a Tahrir moment.”

“We felt there was a real rage building up in America, and we thought that we would like to create a spark which would give expression for this rage.”

Other support for Occupy Wall Street has come from online funding website Kickstarter, where more than $75,000 has been pledged, deliveries of food and from cash dropped in a bucket at the park. Liberal film maker Michael Moore has also pledged to donate money.

The protests began in earnest on September 17, triggered by an Adbusters campaign featuring a provocative poster showing a ballerina dancing atop the famous bronze bull in New York’s financial district as a crowd of protesters wearing gas masks approach behind her.

Dressed in anarchist black, the battle-ready mob is shrouded in a fog suggestive of tear gas or fires burning. Some are wearing gas masks, others wielding sticks. The poster’s message seems to be a heady combination of sexuality, violence, excitement and adventure.

Former carpenter Robert Daros, 23, saw that poster in a cafe in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Having lost his work as a carpenter after Florida’s speculative construction boom collapsed in a heap of sub-prime mortgage foreclosures, he quit his job as a bartender and traveled to New York City with just a sleeping bag and the hope of joining the protest movement.

Daros was one of the first people to arrive on Wall Street for the so-called occupation on September 17, when protesters marched and tried to camp on Wall Street only to be driven off by police to Zuccotti Park – two acres of concrete without a blade of grass near the rising One World Trade Center.

“When I was a carpenter, I lost my job because the financier of my project was arrested for corporate fraud,” said Daros, who was wearing a red arm band to show he was helping out in the medic section of the Occupy Wall Street camp.

Since its obscure beginnings, the campaign has drawn global media attention in places as far-flung as Iran and China. The Times of London, however, was not alone when it called the protests “Passionate but Pointless.”

Adbusters’ co-founder Lasn dismisses that, reeling off specific demands: a tax on the richest 1 percent, a tax on currency trades and a tax on all financial transactions.

“Down the road, there will be crystal clear demands coming out of this movement,” he said. “But this first phase of the movement is messy and leaderless and demandless.”

“I think it was perfect the way it happened.”

(Recasts with comment from Soros aide, adds new details to clarify. The original version can be found here)

(Additional reporting by Cezary Podkul in New York and Cameron French in Toronto, writing by Mark Egan, editing by Claudia Parsons)

Obama asked for the unvetted correspondence on the second day of his tenure and has used them to help shape policy and to enliven his speeches with the stories of real people.

The correspondence, featured in the book “Ten Letters,” shows that America is struggling.

“The one way where Obama still has some intimate interaction with ordinary American people is through these 10 letters,” author Eli Saslow told Reuters in an interview.

“This is his one authentic place of interaction about what is going on in people’s lives,” said Saslow, who has covered the Obama White House for The Washington Post.

His book is published this week by Doubleday.

Reading the letters of ordinary Americans is not new. For decades American presidents, Republicans and Democrats alike, have read and responded to correspondence.

America’s first president, George Washington, received about five letters a day, opening them himself and responding to them. William McKinley hired an assistant to deal with a “flood of 100 letters” daily in the late 1800s.

Writing to the White House spiked with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats during the great Depression of the 1930s, when he urged listeners to “tell me your troubles.” He was deluged with 450,000 letters in the week after his first radio broadcast. President Bill Clinton received 2.26 million letters in 1998 and more than 1 million email letters.

CIGARS AND SHOES

Americans have never been shy at sharing their anger. Clinton was inundated with cigars during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and President George W. Bush was mailed hundreds of shoes after an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at him.

Unlike his predecessors, Obama has formalized a process for sifting the mail and emails from the American people.

“Obama is the first president to make such a science of the process, which is typical of his personality,” Saslow said. “He has created this scientific system for the mail.”

A team of 50 junior staffers and a thousand volunteers sort about 20,000 pieces of correspondence daily by category, such as justice, unemployment, health reform or immigration, and by sentiment.

The book reveals Obama often touched by the letters and on average responding to one or two of them nightly.

Saslow said Obama told him, “The letters sometimes make him feel so powerless because these problems are so real and urgent and desperate and the act of governing is so slow that he sometimes recognizes there is nothing he can do to help.”

Saslow said Obama admitted that on a few occasions he had written a check or made a phone call to help fix someone’s problem because he felt it was all he could do.

The letters Obama receives six days a week reflect the overall mail. For example, if 20 percent of letters are from military families, he will receive two such letters in his daily packet and if 50 percent of the letters were about being jobless, five of his 10 letters will be about that topic.

Similarly, if two thirds have a negative sentiment and one third are upbeat, that will be reflected.

Most of the letters detail problems and suffering in people’s lives. Joblessness, foreclosures and economic woes make up a huge portion of the correspondence.

Still, the book is not without hope. It opens with a woman who wrote to Obama after she lost her job, her boyfriend’s business went bust and the bank foreclosed on their house. Then, days after she lost her health benefits she found out she was pregnant with her second child.

The book ends with her selling Obama’s response to an autograph dealer for $7,000 and reading his response to her one last time. “Things will get better,” Obama wrote.

And Friedman should know. The 64-year-old was a student organizer during the anti-Vietnam War movement, protesting from 1964 for 11 years until the war ended. He also joined Civil Rights actions against racial segregation in America.

On Wednesday, as thousands of union workers marched to show solidarity with the movement called Occupy Wall Street, he walked shoulder-to-shoulder with dreadlocked college dropouts, unemployed youth and students, who for three weeks have camped out near Wall Street and who have no plans to leave.

“It felt in my gut very much like what I was a part of in the 1960s,” Friedman said. “What people are expressing … is an experience that their opportunities are shrinking, not growing and their hopes are shrinking, not growing, and that is an unnatural feeling for the young,” he said.

The protesters object to the Wall Street bailout in 2008, which they say left banks enjoying huge profits while average Americans suffered under high unemployment and job insecurity with little help from the federal government.

What the Occupy Wall Street movement has in common with the 1960s, he said, was that the weak economy hits home, just like racism or the chance that you or your boyfriend or brother or your son might be drafted to fight in Vietnam.

Most protests since the 1960s – against U.S. actions in Central America in the 1980s or against free trade in the 1990s or the impending Iraq War in 2003 – were in solidarity with an ideal. This, like Civil Rights and Vietnam, is personal.

That more than anything else is why the Occupy Wall Street movement could spread, Friedman said.

TEA AND SYMPATHY

One of the hallmarks of the protests has been the relative lack of violence. Aside from the arrest of 700 people on the Brooklyn Bridge last Saturday and some use of pepper spray by police, the uprising has been relatively tame compared to the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999 or the Free Trade Area of the Americas protests in Miami in 2003.

“There’s a lot of naive idealism happening, what’s wrong with that?” said Jeremy Moss, 41, a mental health counsellor from the Bronx who lived in Seattle during the WTO riots and said this felt different.

The movement has prompted marches in cities across America and has garnered sympathy in some unexpected places.

A top U.S. Federal Reserve official said the protests were an understandable reaction to persistently high unemployment.

“I am somewhat sympathetic – that will shock you,” Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said on Thursday. “We have too many people out of work for too long. We have a very frustrated people, and I can understand their frustration,” he said.

The head of the finance arm of General Electric Co, which needed Washington’s help to survive in 2008, said he too was sympathetic. “If I were unemployed now, I’d be really angry too,” said Michael Neal of GE Capital. “There are a lot of unhappy people right now and there’s not a lot going on that gives you much reason to be inspired.”

Georgetown University history Professor Michael Kazin, an expert on social movements as an academic and as a protester himself since the Vietnam war days, says the protests are evocative of those in the Great Depression.

“This is like some of the protests in the 1930s, which started … with protests about joblessness and was then funnelled into the rising labour movement,” he said, noting that now, like then, students, intellectuals and union workers share the same basic goal – a good job.

Kazin said the protests could become a liberal counterbalance to the Tea Party. “Politicians have to be pushed. You cannot just hope they will do the right thing,” said Kazin, author of “American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation” and co-editor of Dissent magazine. “The history of social and political change in America is movements pressure change from politicians.”

MIDDLE-CLASS FANTASY?

For all the sympathy it inspires, the movement may struggle to build mass participation.

Edgar Aracena, a New Jersey-based organizer for the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union, has been an activist since he was a student in the early 1980s. He said many Americans have an ideological problem with economic-based protests. “There is a fantasy in the United States that we are all middle class and we will all be the boss one day. People buy into that,” he said.

Aracena said as he tries to organize workers he would characterize as the working poor, they question whether they need the protection of a union, telling him, “We are not the working poor, we are professionals.”

In Europe, by contrast, Aracena said, workers proudly identify themselves as working class. So when something happens to spark potential outrage and protest, workers are clear which side of the system they stand on.

As the protests enter their fourth week, the size of the crowd has begun to grow. As many as 5,000 marched on Wednesday. Such numbers pale besides the 50,000 or 60,000 protesters who would gather at International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings a decade ago or the more than 250,000 people who marched against the Iraq war in New York City in 2003.

Still, the protest is among the largest in New York since demonstrations against the Bush administration at the 2004 Republican Convention, which organizers said drew 500,000.

But as the nascent movement gathers steam, struggles and problems are apparent. Is their message clear enough? Who is their leader? How long can they last, camped out in a concrete park as the weather chills? Who will control it?

Such questions have sown discord.

POETS AND PAINTERS

The young nucleus of the protest say they remain “in charge.” But older activists want more organization and purpose from the denizens of Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan.

Walter Hillegass, a plumber from Queens who says he can no longer work due to Ground Zero-related illnesses, said new leadership was needed to bring the protests to their full potential. “They need a little help right now to focus them a little better,” said Hillegass.

He and some union brethren from New York and Boston commandeered one of the stone tables in the park as their own little area, from which they were trying to spread the message that the movement was about more than just Wall Street greed.

Others worry that unions want to co-opt the event.

Christopher Guerra, 27, complained unions would not allow him to speak at Wednesday’s rally. “They were here for their own thing,” said Guerra, a paint-splattered artist who calls himself a conservative Republican. “I wanted to give a speech but they wouldn’t let me.”

Some of the movement’s backers also said it had to remain pure and reject outside influence.

“It really depends on the cohesion of this group, not having people come in from the outside and taking it over,” said Rev.

Brian Merritt, a spokesman for the Occupy DC movement camped out in McPherson Square, just off K Street, Washington’s power row for corporate lobbyists.

Georgetown’s Kazin said while protesters have not articulated their goals, “If this movement continues to grow and continues to be popular, which is just as important, then the pressure will mount on politicians to do something.”

Judging by comments from U.S. President Barack Obama, their message is being heard by some in Washington. “I think people are frustrated and … the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works,” Obama told reporters on Thursday.

At least one top Republican, however, had no time for the Wall Street protesters. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor referred to them on Friday as “growing mobs” that are trying to divide the country.

(Writing by Mark Egan, additional reporting from Ian Simpson in Washington and Scott Malone in Boston, editing by Claudia Parsons)