Socio-Economics History Blog

Socio-Economics History Blog

Will there be an ‘October Surprise’ in Election 2012?

by mosesman
http://www.nlpwessex.org/docs/irancontra.htm
[The ‘October Surprise’ sabotage] was a covert operation by the Reagan-Bush campaign that secretly forged a deal with the Iranian radicals who, after overthrowing the US-backed Shah, were holding 52 Americans (including several CIA agents) as hostages. In exchange for holding the hostages until after the [1980 Presidential] election, the Reagan-Bush team offered the Iranians millions of dollars in arms, material, and other considerations. Sure enough, the hostages were held until minutes after Reagan’s inauguration, then ‘suddenly’ released. Bush and Casey personally participated in the secret negotiations. Source: http://www.nlpwessex.org/docs/irancontra.htm
  • Will  there be an ‘October Surprise’ in Election 2012? 
    by David Jackson, http://www.usatoday.com/ 
    The month has turned, and election junkies are asking a familiar question: Will there be an October Surprise? Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary defines “October Surprise” as “a news event late in a political campaign that has the potential to influence the outcome of an election,” but it is as much myth as reality.
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    Late-breaking news can affect elections, such as the late-game revelation of George W. Bush’s DWI arrest in the 2000 election. But big events can happen anytime. A pivotal development in 2008 — the collapse of Lehman Brothers and subsequent financial meltdown — happened in September.
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    Will Mitt Romney’s “47% tape,” disclosed last month, be seen as the big event of Campaign 2012? Or will it be the next unemployment report, due in October? While some observers look to this month’s debates for an “October Surprise,” no one knows when — of if — anything will happen. That’s the nature of surprises.
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    While we’ve always traced use of the term “October Surprise” to the 1980 election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary goes back even further:
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    “The term came first into use just after the 1972 presidential election, when the United States was in negotiations to end the domestically-divisive Vietnam War.
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    “Twelve days before Election Day, on October 26, 1972, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger appeared at a White House press conference and announced, “We believe that peace is at hand.” Though Nixon was widely considered the favorite for re-election over challenger George McGovern, the news proved beneficial to Nixon as he went on to win every state except Massachusetts in the election.”
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    The New York Observer, meanwhile, cites a more familiar story:
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    “The term ‘October surprise’ is most famously associated with the 1980 campaign, when Republicans spent the fall worrying that Jimmy Carter would engineer a last-minute deal to free the American hostages who had been held in Iran since the previous year. Carter and Ronald Reagan were locked in a close race, but an awful economy and flagging national confidence made the president supremely vulnerable.
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    read more!

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