Does anyone seriously doubt whether or not we can expect an "October surprise" from Rove this fall? And, more importantly, what is the Democrat's strategy to pre-empt such a strategy's success?
First, a quick trip down memory lane to remind us who we're dealing with here:
- Remember the Mehlman/Rove Powerpoint presentation that laid out the R's midterm election strategy? That's the one that on Slide #10 reminded the Repugs to "maintain a positive issue environment."
- Remember this Madsen Counterpunch article detailing many, many Rovian dirty tricks, from Gore-ing Gore to McCain to Harkin?
- Remember the absurd statement from the White House chief of staff about why we had to deal with Iraq precisely when we did? "'From a marketing point of view,' said Andrew H. Card, Jr., the White House chief of staff on the rollout this week of the campaign for a war with Iraq, 'you don't introduce new products in August.'" -- New York Times, September 7, 2002
So, this is who we're dealing with, folks. No surprises here.
A recent diary by Pops has cited the Australian Sunday Telegraph's coverage of the
British Sunday Express's report that Osama has been found:
Osama bin Laden has been found and is surrounded by US special forces in an area of land bordering north-west Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Sunday Express, known for its sometimes colourful scoops, claims the al-Qaeda leader has been "sighted" for the first time since 2001 and is being monitored by satellite.
The paper claims he is in a mountainous area to the north of the Pakistani city of Quetta. The region is said to be peopled with bin Laden supporters and the terrorist leader is estimated to also have 50 of his fanatical bodyguards with him.
While we can debate the relative likelihood of the veracity of this story, many of us have been assuming that given past experience with the Rove machine (hell, we can even go back to Reagan and Carter and the Iranian hostages to see how this works), an October surprise capture or "shot while trying to escape" scenario for Osama bin Laden is an extremely likely scenario.
So, since we can all see something like this coming a mile away, what is the Dem strategy?
Here's my recommendation:
IMO the best thing the candidates could do right now would be to hit some talking points as often as possible in order to pre-empt/dilute such a strategy's effect. For example:
- "I fully expect our highly trained, best in the world etc. military forces to capture bin Laden eventually. Let's have a hand for our military, folks!"
- "In fact, the mere fact that our amazing military hasn't yet captured bin Laden is yet another example of how the Iraq war is draining resources from other, more important uses of our scarce resources."
- "Again, I fully expect our military to capture Bin Laden any day now; but knowing this administration, it wouldn't surprise me if bin Laden conveniently showed up captured just a few weeks before the presidential election this fall."
(I think the last point is the trickiest one for a candidate to say; perhaps instead of the candidate saying it this last one should be repeated by McAuliffe or a designated Dem attack dog of choice. Ptolemy suggested Clark or Dean as attack dogs for this one; I think either would be exceptional at carrying this last point.)
IMO this message should be carried early and often to the public.
Thoughts?