October Surprise

Open Thread

Mark Noonan24 Comments

The election news is so positive for the GOP that you seriously start to wonder if its all too good to be true. All I can say right now is: get out and vote. Bring a friend. But not that blue-haired maiden aunt; leave her at home.

The Democrats have tried their October surprise – a claim that Trump praised Hitler. The story is entirely unsourced and even some MSM outfits are treating it as the garbage that it is. I doubt it’ll get any traction – Democrats have been calling Trump Hitler since 2015. You can only do that so long before everyone who’s not a Democrat fanatic just tunes it out. But I doubt this is the last of if – if things are as going as well for us as we think, then the Democrats will just get more desperate as we approach election day. There is no lie they won’t utter – no dirty trick they won’t engage in. Yes, they will cheat if they can – but they can only cheat if its close in crucial areas as it was in 2020. I suspect this won’t be close.

To digress for a moment here: the Democrats and the overall Left don’t even know why Hitler was bad. Even if Hitler had never carried out the Holocaust he still would have been someone who all decent people had to oppose. Hitler was bad because he thought that God didn’t exist and that the State stood supreme over all human considerations. In other words, the basics of Hitler’s evil was the same as the evil of Communism and Fascism…and, of course, the godless modern Left who want total control of our lives.

Harris took the day off yesterday and is mostly taking today off – just a bit of prep work for an interview. And yet her team is calling Trump exhausted. It is very strange how her campaign is being run – and some people are pointing out that Harris has pulled together some pretty bad people to run it. Like they just don’t know what to do. Sending Harris to campaign in Texas is just bizarre. Having her take days off with two weeks left to go is malpractice. If (when) Harris loses, the knives will come out – she will be chopped to pieces as everyone runs for cover and disavows any responsibility.

Anyways, I just hope this proves true: I’m tired of Nevada voting for the idiot every election.

The Hunt for an October Surprise

Mark Noonan41 Comments

We’ve got two – count ’em, two! – potential October Surprises in the rumor mill:

1.  Obama inks a deal with Iran to give up the nuclear program.

2.  Bottom-feeding attorney Gloria Allred has some scandal to uncork on Romney (or Ryan) in the closing days of the campaign.

A deal with Iran is possible but highly unlikely – at best it would be some sort of nebulous agreement by Iran to say that they will consider the possibility of reviewing the option of negotiating a nuke deal with us at some future date.  Still, if anything is done then the MSM will go ape over it making it out as the most important foreign policy achievement since World War Two.  I don’t think, though, that it would affect the election – most people are not too concerned about Iran and, at any rate, those who are set to vote for Romney long ago tuned Obama and his Administration out – such a deal, if struck, would make a lot of MSM noise but essentially drop in to a bottomless pit of public indifference.

Something from Allred is also very much possible – remember, it was Allred who torpedoed Cain earlier this year, ruined Whitman’s campaign in California in 2010 and nearly destroyed Schwarzenegger’s gubernatorial bid in 2002.  She does this by coming up with someone who claims to have been horribly treated by the Republican target and then counts on the compliant MSM to carry the ball.

Given the background we have on Romney and Ryan it does seem implausible that there is any sort of a sexual scandal – to be sure, either Ryan or Romney might have had indiscretions in the past (all of us are, after all, fallen human beings and prey to weakness and sin), but it seems unlikely.  It certainly seems to be highly unlikely that there is any such story of recent vintage to be told about the men.  I believe it would more likely be some woman who claimed discrimination by Romney in employment or, possibly, a story that at some point Romney (or Ryan) employed an illegal immigrant for some sort of domestic service.   Remember, there doesn’t have to be a shred of evidence in the accusation – all there has to be is some sort of connection with the accuser to Romney or Ryan.  As it will be set off late in the campaign, there will be extremely limited time (and absolutely no inclination on the part of the MSM) to check the veracity of the story.  Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit, in light of the Allred rumor, is advising that Romney inform the MSM outfits that – win or lose – any false accusation will result in a libel suit with all sorts of lengthy and embarrassing discovery launched against the MSMers who report a lie.  That is good advice – but while it might give some MSMers pause, it won’t actually defuse the hand grenade.

As the wheels are coming off the Obama cart, we must expect something to happen (as an aside, the fact that we’re getting these rumors indicates that people deep inside Team Obama know that doom impends – if they were really confident of victory, none of this sort of thing would be going on).  This will become even more true if polling by Wednesday doesn’t show any post-3rd-debate improvement for Obama (and it is highly unlikely that it will).  Obama is heading for a defeat and doesn’t want to be defeated – and his team is chock full of knee-to-groin Chicago political operatives.  Political operatives who not only want to win but are also likely worried about how a Romney Justice Department might view some of the actions taken since January 20th, 2009.

Will a scandal bomb work?  Would, say, the revelation that Romney employed an illegal or discriminated against women in employment throw the race to Obama?  Would, that is, such a late-in-the-game bit of scandal-mongering convince people that Romney is such a lousy person that its better to stick with Obama for four more years?  Highly unlikely.  It might shave a point off of Romney’s total, but as I expect he’ll get at least 53% of the vote, that won’t be enough.  But, on the other hand, it could work.  Time will tell if it is tried, if it is effective and whether or not Romney has prepared for this as he’s turned out prepared for every last thing which has come his way in 2012 – and my bet is that they do have a prepared response for anything Team Obama might throw at them.  But, we shall see – just get ready for anything to happen over the next 16 days.