What will the October Surprise be? Post guesses here.
I don’t have to link polls, you’ve seen them. Gallup, Rasmussen, PPP, it doesn’t matter. Democrats are in trouble; not just trouble, it looks like 1852, with the Democrats standing in for the Whigs. Which makes sense, in an odd kind of way: “…Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency, and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism.” (Wikipedia)
But never mind the ancient history. More recent history suggests that when either party find themselves staring problems in November in the face, they’ll find something to jam into the news cycle the month before. “Peace is at hand!” “Iran-Contra!” and of course the inverse October Surprise of 1980, Carter’s failure to get the hostages held by Iran released.
With the soothsayers predicting a debacle, the minds of Democrats must be pretty sharply focused about now. They do have one advantage: virtually total control over the “news media”, which they can pretty well use to orchestrate most anything, raising it to enough of a crescendo to qualify as a spoiler for Republican chances. Against that, it isn’t a Presidential year. Axelrod and Rahm must be puzzling that one out. If they’ve got something really good, wouldn’t it be better to save it for 2012? Or do they let it off now and expect to get (or manufacture) something else for then?
Jim Geraghty at National Review Online suggests — or, rather, his invisible advisor “Obi-Wan Kenobi” advises — that Republicans hold a contest to see who can predict the October surprise. I’m only a Republican by default — I despise the Democrats’ policies, and consider the Libertarians foolishly sophomoric — and I don’t have nearly enough readership to host such a contest with any hope of effectiveness, but I’d like to have 🙂 , so let’s start here. Someone else can pick up the ball if necessary.
What will the October Surprise be? Post it in the comments, or email me at warrick.locke@gmail.com
Bonus question: Will it be a run-of-the-mill October Surprise, or a Reichstag Fire?
(Welcome, readers of thoughtsonline! Steve was kind enough to share a few pebbles from his Instalanche, for which I’m grateful. Look around a bit; perhaps you’ll like something else.)
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3 September 2010 at 12:34 am
Kyle Haight
Hmm.
The traditional October Surprise is the release of some dirt on a candidate, like the last-minute revelation of Bush’s DUI in 2000. That can be effective in derailing a single candidate but wouldn’t have much effect on a midterm election involving dozens of candidates spread across the entire country.
The real factor driving the collapse of the Democrats is the loss of the independent voters. An effective October Surprise would target those voters in an attempt to either drive them away from the Republicans or towards the Democrats. The independents supported Obama when they thought he was a pragmatic post-racial centrist and abandoned him when they discovered he was actually a partisan left-wing ideologue with an anti-American sense of life.
Here’s my wild-ass guess. It will be a two-pronged approach, carrot and stick. The carrot will be some form of economic stimulus, half tax-cut and half targeted spending. It will be framed to attract the support of moderate Republicans in Congress so it can be presented as bipartisan; the spending component of the bill will include payoffs to those moderate Republicans to get them on board. This will make Obama look as though he is doing something about the economy and reaching across the aisle, returning to his post-partisan centrist image.
The stick will be an attempt to frame the Tea Party as racist and extreme, tarring its preferred candidates by association. If they can convince independent voters that those candidates are ‘too extreme’ the Democrats may be able to pull out victories in a number of close Senate races. The trigger for the frame will be a push for immigration amnesty; the Tea Parties will rise in opposition and the opposition will be presented as racist and anti-immigrant.
The timing will be split. They’ll do the bipartisan economic policy bill in September so the tax cuts will have more time to boost the economy before the election. The amnesty push will be October so the images of the ‘anti-immigrant Tea Party racists’ will be fresh in voters minds as they head to the polls.
3 September 2010 at 8:08 am
Patrick
Quick legislation, bipartisan to be sure (aka packed with RINO signatures), to make permanent some of the Bush tax increases. Those for the middle class, maybe even up to high six-figure incomes (to give them cover with the Ma and Pa business and farm owners). Of course, there will be a few sex bombshells about Team-R and particularly Team-T(r) candidates.
3 September 2010 at 8:08 am
Patrick
When I say tax increases, I mean permanently reversing the about-to-be tax increases.
3 September 2010 at 9:00 am
serr8d
Expect the unexpected. I like the ‘tax cuts extension’ Patrick espouses; but that actually helps the economy, and likely Dems (if/with their Cloward-Piven strategy) won’t go for that.
Dirt on a particular candidate won’t be enough, so look for a blanket-denunciation-smear of a strong Tea Party leader. I’d say Sarah Palin and Rush or others of that caliber should definitely watch their backs.
3 September 2010 at 11:47 am
bh
1. False flag hate crime involving someone in Obama’s extended circle.
2. “Osama Bin Laden suspected dead from drone strike in Pakistan.”
3 September 2010 at 1:40 pm
Adam Wells
If the dem collapse was due to national security issues, the bin Laden death rumor would be perfect. As it stands, they’re getting handed their collected arses due to what’s supposed to be their strength; the economy. They’re problem is they’re clueless about the economy, and they’re virtual total control of DC is exposing that cluelessness. They couldn’t pull off an economic October surprise if they wanted to.
Expect smaller targeted surprises this time around, along the lines of the Bush DUI publicity, directed at various candidates in close races. They’ve exhausted the Limbaugh and Palin attacks, so Fiorina, Angle, Buck, et al should be locking their closets down tight.
3 September 2010 at 1:54 pm
motionview
I can’t think of anything that could possibly work, and that worries me. They have to be up to something.
3 September 2010 at 4:41 pm
newrouter
i think a wild card for the demonrats is the 10.2.10 rally. leftiod get togethers tend to get a little wild.
3 September 2010 at 9:01 pm
serr8d
The ‘professional left’ is showing desperation.
3 September 2010 at 10:21 pm
The Monster
They have been setting the table in the media with “The Legend of ‘Bagger Violence”. They want Der Reichstagsbrand so bad they can taste it. If nothing else, I expect some plot to be uncovered by the Secret Service, who will neutralize a threat (therefore leaving him unavailable to contradict The Narrative) that can posthumously be pinned to Flyover Christers Clinging to God and Guns, the latter especially.
There are plenty of mentally unstable people who could be prepped by an agent-provacateur, to be in position at the appropriate School Book Depository when the cops “find” him (having been tipped off that he’ll be there, of course). Pat C. Fallguy will be found to be a member of Beck’s Insider Xtreme, have copies of David Limbaugh’s Crimes Against Liberty, Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny, and Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, with key passages highlighted matching up with an online manifesto explaining why that Kenyan Muslim POTUS is as illegitimate as Trig, and twice as retarded.
3 September 2010 at 10:22 pm
The Monster
s/Trig/Tripp/, unless they’re making him out to be a Randy Andy fan.
3 September 2010 at 10:23 pm
The Monster
“as illegitimate as Tripp, and twice as retarded as Trig.”
3 September 2010 at 11:23 pm
Ric Locke
If you don’t already know of A State of Disobedience by Tom Kratman, I advise you to look it up immediately.
4 September 2010 at 9:20 pm
Tweets that mention Surprise! « Ric's Rulez -- Topsy.com
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by darleenclick, Warrick Locke. Warrick Locke said: Ric's Rules: Surprise!: What will the October Surprise be? Post guesses here. I don’t have to link polls, you’ve s… http://bit.ly/bhlndv […]
5 September 2010 at 9:19 pm
Danger
Better fortify the bunkers Ric:
White House Set To Deploy October Surprise: Michelle Obama
Of course if it rains this plan may backfire 8^)
21 September 2010 at 7:23 pm
TmjUtah
I think it will be massive voter fraud, with the DoJ providing cover.
It will be blatant, and the objective will be two fold: keep at least one house Democrat and destroy what little confidence there is left among the populace in the legitimacy of representative government.
This administration defines success as bringing down the Republic. Nothing else. Once you get that, everything else makes sense.
They’ve about got the job done, too.
21 September 2010 at 7:46 pm
David R. Graham
This administration defines success as bringing down the Republic. Nothing else. Once you get that, everything else makes sense.
They’ve about got the job done, too.”
Exactly, and that’s why I go for the Reichstag Fire ploy, pretext for imposing martial law (cf. Woody Allen). Pluffe recently on Medved was proudly waspish. They’ve got a sting planned, i.e., a Reichstag Fire ploy. Their media would be helping them plan it.
21 September 2010 at 8:24 pm
Wamphyr!
It won’t be a specific October surprise. It will start in Sept, and will have a continuous (media in the tank) stream of negative news about every Tea Party candidate out there – in other words, kind of what we have now. Except this is meant to keep the candidates off balance. The real surprise will be in November (the resident evil surpirse) where the dead come out to vote democratic. Moter Voter, no check and balances to clear the rolls. Then it will be the narrative “Tea Party candidates, besieged by scandal/controversy, narrowly lost the November elections…”
21 September 2010 at 9:19 pm
cthulhu
I dunno…..do they have Obama scheduled for any parades in Dallas in an open-topped car?
21 September 2010 at 9:23 pm
Jim Herrin
These folks are thugs. They know a lot of thugs. They will go after the Tea Party hard. Witness the emphasis on O’Donnel’s minor dirt. There will be a surprising amount of extremism discovered/invented. The media will collaborate. Scare the independents, discourage the patriots and amateur activists. It might be enough to save their majorities.
21 September 2010 at 9:33 pm
max
I’m betting on a “major” scandal involving Bohner and most of the republicans in the senate as corrupt. It will be abandoned 3 days after the election and the witnesses will be completely uncredible after minimal investigation but the scandal will be all over he major media when it breaks based upon the testimony of 2 or 3 witnesses. most likely involving kickbacks from health insurance companies.
21 September 2010 at 9:35 pm
flataffect
It had better be more impressive than the Democrats’ new logo.
21 September 2010 at 10:34 pm
Billll
I continue to believe that Osama has been dead for some time now, and is buried in an unmarked grave in the Tora Bora mountains. “Finding” the grave site would certainly be a winner, and blaming Bush for keeping it secret would also help.
Massive and overt vote fraud to protect the Senate, and complete refusal of the justice dept to even look in to it would certainly dismay the voters. Protecting the gains of the revolution, as they said in Nicaragua. At this point, the House is probably a lost cause for the Dems, but that’s not to say they’ll go softly into the night.
The September jobs report is being delayed into October, which will get the temporary poll workers listed as “jobs created” and the October report is being put off until after the election so the loss of those jobs won’t show up just before election day.
Several states have been given permission to delay sending out absentee ballots to servicemen until probably too late to get them back in time to be counted.
22 September 2010 at 3:36 am
buddy larsen
Ten GOP “Mark Foley” plants appear in mysterious video three days before the election. It takes a week to prove the vid is doctored.
22 September 2010 at 9:28 am
Sorpresa ad Ottobre? « L'antro dell'Apolide
[…] Mi hanno detto che non sono stato il primo. Ric mi ha battuto sul tempo. Forse anche altri. […]
22 September 2010 at 9:56 am
Thomas
Game Changer October Surprise – 2010? or 2012? = Amnesty + Voter Registration
An Administration end run around a recess congress to finally “solve” the illegal immigrant problem.
ICE could coordinate with ACORN/ democrat affiliates to simultaneously start the documents for naturalization and voter registration for all illegal immigrants who cooperate. Citizenship “classes” and oath to follow at a convenient time so as not to impede the new voter’s ability to express their choice at the ballot box.
“Come on down!, register to vote and start your naturalization and voter registration paperwork!, any who apply now will be granted full amnesty under the new ICE regulations formulated by the White House…”.
The November vote could be expected to be heavily tilted toward the administration’s candidates by the influx of “new” citizen voters. Due to the anonymity of voting, the election results could never be untangled, even if the amnesty + voter registration were later rescinded by congress. The citizenship grant could be removed later, but it would be impossible to “undo” the effect on the vote. Any attempt to do so would run into a voter rights legal and PR nightmare.
Personally, I think this sort of warping-to-destruction of the republic fits Obama’s profile for “change”.
23 September 2010 at 10:42 am
Thursday Tab Dump. « Nice Deb
[…] conservative blogs are speculating on what sort of “October Surprise”, the Dems have in store for us this year. You know […]
23 September 2010 at 1:29 pm
Robert
The signal flare went up last week, the trial balloon went up too…Look for some sort of “immigration” bill or some sort of executive order from the POTUS to do something to appease his base.
23 September 2010 at 10:27 pm
ernie oertle
In this Nov’s election, theLeft will experiment w/ voting-fraud. They will pull some really shady artifices w/ ballot-boxes & electronic-voting, but it will be only a trial-run for their way-serious attempts in ‘012. What should have us more concerned is – these are HardLefters. These guys have already come this close – thisclose – to cementing Power. That’s all they really care about. Short of winning re-election in ‘012, they will proceed w/ extra-constitutional, violent, endeavors to divide & cause harm to the nation. They WILL do this! The reason for refusing to secure the border w/ Mexico & opposing AZ in court – is not so-much a sandbagging to hooker possible-future Democrat-voters, it is a connived vouchsafed tactical-availability to get large-counts of foreign narco-warriors & mujahideen into the country w/ haste to serve as “progressive” muscle at a moment of their choosing. In their nihilistic hatred of America & democracy & small-r republicanism & freedom – they will cause blood!