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October Surprise Question
Mar. 4th, 2004 05:03 pmOctober surprise is the traditional name given to political shenanigans engineered to occur late in the political season in order to give one candidate an edge over the others. The classic example conspiracy theorists like to point to is Iran’s refusal to release the hostages until Reagan was elected – something many conspiracy theorists like to blame on George Bush I.
I am already hearing people calling any forthcoming capture of Osama bin Laden as just such a political machination. The theory is that high-level government officials have always known how to bring in bin Laden if they so desired, and were merely waiting for the politically opportune time. Bush II saw a big jump in his numbers when they captured Hussein, but they went down pretty fast as well.
After a year of keeping Osama out of the news, the administration is pushing out info about him at a rapid pace. News reports are all over the place of heightened efforts to bring him in, the administration is leaking all kinds of details to friendly press (like the Washington Times) and Bush’s main campaign ads right now trumpet 9-11 like mad.
My question is: If the administration really was engaging in such a conspiracy (waiting for the right time to bring in bin Laden), do you think they would do it in October or would they do it sooner to reverse Kerry’s current lead in the polls? Any other fun conspiracy musings?
I am already hearing people calling any forthcoming capture of Osama bin Laden as just such a political machination. The theory is that high-level government officials have always known how to bring in bin Laden if they so desired, and were merely waiting for the politically opportune time. Bush II saw a big jump in his numbers when they captured Hussein, but they went down pretty fast as well.
After a year of keeping Osama out of the news, the administration is pushing out info about him at a rapid pace. News reports are all over the place of heightened efforts to bring him in, the administration is leaking all kinds of details to friendly press (like the Washington Times) and Bush’s main campaign ads right now trumpet 9-11 like mad.
My question is: If the administration really was engaging in such a conspiracy (waiting for the right time to bring in bin Laden), do you think they would do it in October or would they do it sooner to reverse Kerry’s current lead in the polls? Any other fun conspiracy musings?
