The VP debate is over and the reviews are in -- Biden exceeded high
expectations, and Palin exceed low ones...she stayed on message, though
not on topic. And now it's likely that, as so many VP nominees before
her, Palin will disappear into small markets to work her conservative
base far from the national media "filter."
So, short of some Obama gaffe -- and the man doesn't appear to make
major make gaffes -- we're down to only three significant variables
over these final four weeks:
First, the economy is tanking so obviously that it seems likely to
dominate the election. Per most presidential campaigns, it'll come
down to pocketbook issues -- and, again, McCain hasn't passed the
economist-in-chief test.
Second, the McCain camp keeps threatening to try to Willie
Hortonize Obama with ex-weatherman Bill Ayres. This guilt-by-association technique has worked before, but the economy is too big and
the hour seems too late for such a despicable, lame linkage. What next
Steve Schmidt -- an ad connecting O.J. and B.O.?
Third is an "October Surprise" that forces the race to be decided
on international not economic grounds.
Enter bin Laden? I recall how in March of 2004 I cornered Wes Clark at
an event and asked why wouldn't bin Laden do something provocative to
help Bush win reelection since each protagonist helped the other -- in
a Bush-Obama comparison, Bush was advantaged in America and bin Laden
could better recruit al-Qaeda. Being a discrete military grown-up,
Clark wouldn't engage me -- so I launched a "Name the October Surprise
Contest" on Air America Radio. We got thousands of listeners to
suggest what might happen...and then something did. John Kerry blames
his loss in part in part on bin Laden's Friday tape before the Tuesday
election for focusing attention on the terrorist threat just as Kerry
was starting to climb.
Let's stipulate that al-Qaeda is evil, but not stupid. We've watched
them attack Great Britain right after Gordon Brown became PM and
attack Spain just before their national elections. Since militaristic
conservative presidents are their recruiting tools, there's a very
real chance that bin Laden or a local remnant will do something to
derail Obama and help the warrior candidate.
While no one can exactly predict or stop him, there is something the
Huffington Post, The Nation and Air America -- as well as all other
progressive voices and outlets -- can together do. Repeatedly raise
now the prospect of a terrorist intervention into our election because
Republicans are more likely to fall into al-Qaeda's trap of
overreacting, witness Bush. If we say it again and again, either it
won't happen... or it will and voters can say, not this time!
And as Katrina and Arianna explain below, Obama himself can give a
foreign policy address where he soberly lays out how terrorists in the
past like to test a new president or alter an election -- and how both
candidates should not allow anti-Americans to hijack our American
election.
Let's not surrender to political correctness and fail to anticipate
this possibility because of how awful i t would be. Fool us once,
shame on you...
