Usually the “October surprise” is something that a party challenging the party in power fears…an unspoken event, action or development that just coincidentally happens close to the election, in time to influence the vote in favor of the party in power.
It’s usually something feared but seldom telegraphed in advance.
This time, if NewsMax’s report is correct, it’s being virtually telegraphed that something is in the works for October:
In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an “October surprise” to help win the November congressional elections.
President Bush’s political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the elections.
The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses.
Rove is not saying what the October surprise will be.
Usually an October surprise is something that is used to manipulate the electorate — a massive “change the subject.” Seldom has it been announced in advance as brazenly as this.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.