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October Surprise — 34 Comments

  1. Obama once promised to “slow the rise of the oceans”. Sandy gives him that chance. Go to it Barack! An October surprise to end October surprises.

  2. effess,

    That was my thought too. He can take a helicopter to Assateague Island and raise his arms at the shoreline. The storm and the flood water will recede. Afterwards, he gets a photo-op with the wild ponies.

  3. So if in fact Sandy doesn’t hit with the force expected (remember this administration is BIG on over-promise, under-deliver) then Obama would’nt hesitate to say “I told you so!” in his bid for reelection.

    Even at the level of the absurd, it’s still too dangerous.

  4. Given the Benghazi “Surprise” I don’t think October surprise is going to have much influence…it’s too Old Hat for words.
    Obama blew his chances for a turn-around when he DIDN’T respond to help cries.
    Otherwise, he would have a chance to turn things around as the Tough-Commander-In-Chief.
    Wodda-cudda-shudda!

  5. I’m with Good Ole Charlie, even if Obama announces that he has captured or killed the Benghazi terrorists, he cannot avoid the disturbing fact that he chose to allow them to attack for 7 hours on 9/11 instead of taking them out then & there.
    What’s left for a surprise announcement? The only thing Obama has going for him with independents & undecideds is fighting AQ and saving GM. News of Jeep moving its factory to China and Obama’s deadly inaction in Benghazi blunt both. He’s toast.

  6. I too think there is little Obama can do to effect the election. But that doesn’t mean that he won’t try. At this point, he has to be open to the old saying, “Desperate times call for desperate measures”.

  7. I’m inclined to believe that Benghazi was intended as an October Surprise. But those damn fool al qadea operatives didn’t follow the script.

  8. I’m betting a personal and viscious accusation.
    Obama’s campaign shrike Steffanie Cutter has been very quiet lately — maybe putting together the final salvo where she’ll unveil a nasty accusation against Romney at the last second. Some suggestions: Mitt once tortured kittens, got rich by outsourcing sensitive US defense contracts to China, had a child out of wedlock, engaged in live human sacrifice at a Mormon Temple, not to mention the discovery of secret documents in the Tabernacle, recently found by unnamed sources, which outline a diabolical plan to eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid for all citizens. Or possibly that Ann worked as a stipper, while Mitt was chairing the Campus KKK meetings in a basement at Harvard.
    The possibilities for personal attack are endless, and require no more than an active imagination, and a lack of conscience; both of which are large supply at team Obama.
    Real policy ‘surprises’, designed to enhance Obama’s weak points seem to be too difficult for this bunch, who are too detached from actual governing to come up with something plausible – no one event I can think of would change his credibility on any single issue. Personal destruction is his forte; I wouldn’t expect finesse, just a ham-handed sledgehammer or two at the last moment.

  9. I considered it a dead solid lock that the Obama campaign would attack the Church of Latter Day Saints with similar viciousness as that which they directed at Sarah Palin. Such an attack never came. There was a moment, maybe 6-7 weeks ago, when the Obama campaign pretended the Romney campaign was going after Jeremiah Wright, and the Obama Campaign said: “That means Romney’s religion is on the table.” The Obama campaign was putting out the word to media: it was a call to arms. However, the assault never occurred. Maybe it got distracted by other breaking news.

    I still expect the assault on the church to happen; based upon racial history of the church. If it does not happen, it means that Obama’s internal polling has shown that some group of voters – possibly independent voters – would be turned off by an assault on the church. It would mean that American voters are becoming more shrewd about personal attacks.

    Or, the attack could still happen. It is the one thing which I thought was a certainty, yet which has not yet occurred in any significant way.

  10. Not sure how this will play out in Ohio or Colorado, but where I live, no one cares much about printer cartridges right now.

    effess made a good joke about slowing the rise of the oceans, but there’s actually some truth to it. If Obama was smart, he’d be completely focused on making sure his administration is seen doing something about the hurricane right now.

  11. He can take a helicopter to Assateague Island

    Helicopter? Don’t be silly. He can just walk out to the island.

  12. “Barry” may be floundering because for the first time in his life he’s been in a job for more than a pay cycle or two, a job in which he now has a record (and God knows it’s an unenviable one), and no sealed divorce records to release. The quiver is empty, and the Party has left him as high and dry as those poor guys in Benghazi.

  13. Who cares about printer cartridges? The real October surprise is a massive hurricane which is about to blow Romney into the deep sea, return Democratic control to the House and the Senate to filibuster proof majority. Here’s how it is going to play out:

    For the next four days or so, while the storm is battering the coast, Obama will be on television endlessly, informing the nation with even the most miniscule updates. Pictures of him “in command” will adorn all major newspapers.

    When the storm passes, Obama will tour the disaster areas throughout the eastern seaboard, a purely “apolitical” effort. There will be endless footage of him hugging devastated hurricane victims and giving impromptu speeches on how they are “not forgotten” and how we’re going to rebuild and get them back on their feet with all deliberate speed.

    By Saturday or Sunday, Obama will have a primetime speech from the Oval Office. It will be unbelievably moving and inspirational, including a dozen or so anecdotes of “real people” he met during his tours and their strength and tenacity. He will once again assure them and the nation the rebuilding and healing after this tragedy has begun (thanks to him). The metaphor will be lost on no one, the government is there to help folks, it needs to be there in every way, shape and form, for if it isn’t, all people would end up like those victims. And Obama is the protectorate of this sacred social compact. Romney wishes to destroy it.

    Meanwhile, just in case that metaphor is lost on one or two people, Bill Clinton and the like will state it outright. Many, many times.

    And Romney? He’ll be mute, absolutely mute. If he says or does anything, he will be savaged by the MSM for “politicizing” a tragedy. Indeed, it may frustrate him to such a degree that he’ll make a poorly phrased offhand comment that can be easily spun as a clear example of his callow, heartless, selfish, capitalist-pig persona.

    By next Monday, Obama will return to the campaign trial for the final day, land in Ohio (and probably, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado too) for a victory lap of victory laps, adorned by crowds of tens of thousands.

    In the end, Obama will win between 400 and 450 electoral votes and about 56-58% of the popular vote. Democrats will win 60 seats in the U.S. Senate (at least), losing none of their own, while picking up Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas. They will gain about 60-70 seats in the House, a comfortable majority, restoring Pelosi to the Speaker’s chair, feistier and more determined than ever.

    Brace for it, folks. I am as sure of this outcome as I am of anything I have ever seen in politics. It is coming…

    And, it is all the more poignant because I do believe that if the election were held tomorrow instead of a week from tomorrow, Romney would win. Instead, he’s about to be buried, dragging the GOP with him down ticket. And not because of any rejection of Romney per se or endorsement of Obama’s record. No. Because of …a hurricane…

    Maybe God is a Democrat.

  14. “In the end, Obama will win between 400 and 450 electoral votes and about 56-58% of the popular vote. Democrats will win 60 seats in the U.S. Senate (at least), losing none of their own, while picking up Arizona, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas. They will gain about 60-70 seats in the House, a comfortable majority, restoring Pelosi to the Speaker’s chair, feistier and more determined than ever.”

    Friendly advice: Do not smoke an ounce of moto and munch on a sack of peyote buttons before dropping 5 tabs of acid and drinking several fifths of vodka. It tends to cloud over your hold on reality and perhaps it may erase gravity on planet utopia. BTW, free fall without a parachute is great until the last 1/1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of an inch.

  15. Touche, parker. I will grant you I might have exaggerated a little. The Dems. probably won’t win the Texas Senate seat. And, Obama might only end up with 55% and 390-400 electoral votes.

    But that’s it. I stand by everything else.

  16. parker: I would go out on a limb and say that it’s very likely Ackler is what’s known in the business as a concern troll.

  17. Not that I think it will do Obama a damned bit of good, by the way. Ackler’s scenario is a wee bit too extreme, though it does make for good fearmongering.

  18. Ackler gave his trollness away but his identification of the Obama/media strategy is correct, although it didn’t need to be said by him.

    There is an opportunity presented by Sandy which puts Obama in a good light, basically, Federal Clause:

    Here’s comes Federal Clause, here come’s Federal Clause, right down Pennsylvania lane.

  19. “parker: I would go out on a limb and say that it’s very likely Ackler is what’s known in the business as a concern troll.”

    neo, you are on a very firm limb, and Ackler is obviously a troll, but it feels good to poke trolls in the ribs. If I had a hammer and he was in my kitchen (I’m just about ready to serve dinner, we eat late for the midwest) I would knock some serious sense into his/her head. 😉

    BTW, you still have electrons running to and fro. Give us in the lost lands of fly over country an up to date weather report of wherever you are in New England.

  20. Wow, I should be flattered by the attention. 🙂 I’m not trying to be a troll, but if that’s how I am perceived, oh well; I better find some accommodations under a bridge. While I’m doing that, Mitt should start lightly dusting himself with Polaner All Fruit. For he is a crisp, crunchy, delicious slice of toast.

  21. “But that’s it. I stand by everything else.”

    That’s the irritating things about ‘progressives’. You stand by a mountain of BS but fail to smell the putrid, decaying scent of your ideology and the tens of millions, over the last century, of corpses slaughtered, as a result of your idiotic yearning for utopia. In polite terms, stick it where the sun does not shine.

  22. Seriously, trolls aside, how are you on the east side (assuming you still have electricity) faring? Here in Iowa we are far away from the mega storm. However, I have a brother in law and nieces and a nephew in MA that we talked to tonight. Their power in down and a tree has toppled in their yard but missed the house.

    Our thoughts go out to you in the zone of Sandy.

  23. Progressives could care less if Romney wins. They’ll just imagine he didn’t and suggest elections are just a social construct.

  24. SteveH,

    I have to disagree, they care very much. But, they have their excuses ready: racism, misogyny, capitalism, etc. They care very much about being on the winning side of the “social construct”.

  25. parker: so far it’s not so bad here. You wouldn’t want to be outside; it was dark and gloomy, pouring rain, and windy all day. We lost power for 15 minutes and then it came back, and although the lights have flickered many many times the power is holding.

    Don’t know how long that will last, though. Dare I hope?

  26. I’m sorry, but the storm and the darkness makes me think this:

    The last Power by Jewel’s Fern:

    The force of Calamar blew and though he expended his life’s forces, his friends combined and gave him strength, and he prayed to the darkness to let his breath be a shower of rain and ruin upon his enemies. He prayed that his ink and deception prove once more, only once more, that like a great hero of the past, if he gave himself to the task, he should be remembered and given a swift death.

    And the deep rumbled and then roared; and no-one felt safe anymore.

  27. For the next four days or so, while the storm is battering the coast, Obama will be on television endlessly, informing the nation with even the most miniscule updates. Pictures of him “in command” will adorn all major newspapers.
    –Ackler

    And meanwhile, outside the storm-stricken area, the opportunity to quietly fashion a coherent timeline out of all the media reports about the strike on the US embassy in Benghazi presents itself. Doesn’t look like the picture that will emerge supports the “Obama… in command” narrative.

    P.S. Obama had planned to skip touring where hurricane Irene had struck. But Romney showed concern and went to show solidarity with the people.

  28. I have been wondering why the president’s campaign has not attacked Mormonism the way I thought they would have done by now., and I remembered something. At an extended family get-together one holiday when we were really young, my brother Mark was watching our older brothers Brian and Craig arguing about something trivial., and, since he agreed with Craig, Mark said, “Hey, Craig, you’ve got an idiot for a brother!” One of our older relatives laughed, and said, “Watch it, Mark–you’re covering a lot of territory there.”

    It occurred to me that anything Democrats criticize about Mormonism itself, that they think they could make ugly enough for a good October Surprise against Romney, would cover a lot of territory: Harry Reid is Mormon, along with several other important Democrats and money-sources. I’m not saying it will stop them completely, but wouldn’t it make that particular brand of October Surprise highly problematic?

    Note the way Pelosi and Biden are careful to claim to be good Catholics themselves, thereby implying that the abortion issues, for instance, don’t really belong to Catholicism ITSELF. They know there are millions of people who believe they are good Catholics themselves AND agree with the Pro-Choice position. I believe Pelosi and Biden would remain silent about some other Catholic issues that aren’t already publicly separated by a lot of people. Anything Democrats might come out with about Mormonism, which they believe would shock people, would, by its very nature, not be commonly known. This would attach it to the religion itself, and thus produce unacceptable collateral damage to powerful Mormon Democrats.

    Precisely because Mormonism is uncharted territory to most people, the Democrats have to be more careful in criticizing it. Didn’t Harry Reid say recently that Romney wasn’t “a good Mormon”? That fell flat on its face, because most people, being uncertain about what Mormonism is in the first place, wouldn’t hold that against Romney. It’s almost funny. Something Democrats must have thought would be a great weakness in our nomination of a practicing Mormon is actually an odd sort of strength–just as Romney’s abilities as a businessman at Bain mitigated a lot of the damage they were certain that they’d do by hanging Bain about his neck. They seriously miscalculated when they went out of their way to get rid of Cain and Gingrich, thinking that Romney would be easy to fight. All that talk of Romney being the one they were really afraid of smelled of the briar patch.

    Of course, they are getting more brazen with their real beliefs, as is the MSM. This means they are making surprising campaign mistakes–look at how ugly it looked when they tried to do that fancy two-step about putting God and Israel back in their Platform. (That was truly priceless!)

    I confess that I was disappointed when people didn’t see that the Dream Act, by helping illegal aliens who joined the military (they had no choice but to include THAT one, just as they had to put God back in their platform) or attended college, was actually a slap at some of the very people they claim to care most about–those who go to work at a lot of hard jobs that don’t require a college education and are often taken by those who have to earn a living as soon as they can and who are essential to any operating civilization–you know, maids, nannies, gardeners, miners, truck drivers, factory workers, etc.–I realize that Democrats want to make sure that everyone possible goes to college and becomes indoctrinated by, and in debt to, the government, but it was a telling omission in the Dream Act. As was cutting it off at the age of 30.

    I’ve written too much. I AM convinced that they will come up with something rotten and malicious for an October Surprise–maybe in terms of planted disinformation intended to cast doubt on the truth of an otherwise factual body of information. I’m just suggesting that Mormonism may be a minefield for them at the moment.

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