October surprise

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In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event with the potential to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the U.S. presidency. The reference to the month of October is because the Tuesday after the first Monday in November is the date for national elections (as well as many state and local elections), and therefore events that take place in late October have greater potential to influence the decisions of prospective voters.

The term came into use shortly after the 1972 presidential election between Republican incumbent Richard Nixon and Democrat George McGovern, when the United States was in the fourth year of negotiations to end the very long and domestically divisive Vietnam War. Twelve days before the election day of November 7, on October 26, 1972, the United States' chief negotiator, the presidential National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, appeared at a press conference held at the White House and announced, "We believe that peace is at hand".^[1] Nixon, despite having vowed to end the unpopular war during his presidential election campaign four years earlier, had failed to either cease hostilities or gradually bring about an end to the war. Nixon was nevertheless already widely considered to be assured of an easy reelection victory against McGovern, but Kissinger's "peace is at hand" declaration may have increased Nixon's already high standing with the electorate. In the event, Nixon outpolled McGovern in every state except Massachusetts and achieved a 20 point lead in the nationwide popular vote. The fighting ended in 1973, but the last soldiers didn't leave Vietnam until 1975.

Since that election, the term "October surprise" has been used preemptively during campaign season by partisans of one side to discredit late-campaign news by the other side.

1980 Carter vs. Reagan

During the Iran hostage crisis, the Republican challenger Ronald Reagan feared a last-minute deal to release the hostages, which might earn incumbent Jimmy Carter enough votes to win re-election in the 1980 presidential election.^[2][3] As it happened, in the days prior to the election, press coverage was consumed with the Iranian government's decision—and Carter's simultaneous announcement—that the hostages would not be released until after the election.^[3]

It was first written about in a Jack Anderson article in the Washington Post in the fall of 1980, in which he alleged that the Carter administration was preparing a major military operation in Iran for rescuing U.S. hostages in order to help him get reelected. Subsequent allegations surfaced against Reagan alleging that his team had impeded the hostage release to negate the potential boost to the Carter campaign.^[4]

After the release of the hostages on the same day as Reagan's inauguration on January 20, 1981, some charged that the Reagan campaign made a secret deal with the Iranian government whereby the Iranians would hold the hostages until Reagan was inaugurated, ensuring that Carter would lose the election.^[3]

Gary Sick, member of the National Security council under Presidents Ford and Carter (before being relieved of his duties mere weeks into Reagan's term) ^[5] made the accusation in a New York Times editorial [4] in the run-up to the 1992 election. The initial bipartisan response from Congress was skeptical: House Democrats refused to authorize an inquiry, and Senate Republicans denied a $600,000 appropriation for a probe.

Eight former hostages also sent an open letter demanding an inquiry in 1991 [5] In subsequent Congressional testimony, Sick said that the popular media had distorted and misrepresented the accusers, reducing them to "gross generalizations" and "generic conspiracy theorists." Sick penned a book on the subject and sold the movie rights to it for a reported $300,000. [6] His sources and thesis were contested by a number of commentators on both sides of the aisle. [7] [8]

Bani-Sadr, the former President of Iran, has also stated "that the Reagan campaign struck a deal with Teheran to delay the release of the hostages in 1980," asserting that "by the month before the American Presidential election in November 1980, many in Iran's ruling circles were openly discussing the fact that a deal had been made between the Reagan campaign team and some Iranian religious leaders in which the hostages' release would be delayed until after the election so as to prevent President Carter's re-election"^[6] He repeated the charge in "My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution & Secret Deals with the U.S."^[7][8]

Two separate congressional investigations looked into the charges, both concluding that there was no plan to seek to delay the hostages' release.^[3] At least three books have argued the case.^[9]

1992 Bush vs. Clinton

Just four days before the vote that year, Ronald Reagan's defense secretary Caspar Weinberger was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal. Though he claims to have been opposed to the sale on principle, Weinberger participated in the transfer of United States TOW missiles to Iran, and was later indicted on several felony charges of lying to the Iran-Contra independent counsel during its investigation. Republicans angrily accused Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh of timing Weinberger's indictment to hurt George H.W. Bush's re-election chances, and on Christmas Eve 1992, in the waning days of his presidency, Bush pardoned Weinberger, just days before his trial was scheduled to begin.

2003 California recall election

The Los Angeles Times released a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger and subsequent allegations that he was a womanizer guilty of multiple acts of sexual misconduct in past decades. The story was released just before the 2003 California recall, prompting many pundits to charge that the timing of the story was aimed specifically at derailing the recall campaign.^[10] It was not the only embarrassing story about Schwarzenegger to surface just days before the campaign: in addition, ABC News and the New York Times reported that in 1975 Schwarzenegger had praised Adolf Hitler during interviews for the film Pumping Iron, which was responsible for the bodybuilder-turned-actor's fame.^[11] The twin controversies later led L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez to coin the term "gropenfuhrer" to describe California's governor-elect;^[12] a series of "Doonesbury" strips made the term famous.

2006 midterm elections

In October 2006, Charles Peña of libertarian website Antiwar.com wrote that "the biggest October surprise so far is North Korea's underground test of a nuclear weapon on Monday."^[13]

The Mark Foley scandal, in which the congressman resigned over sexual computer messages he exchanged with underage congressional pages, broke on September 28, 2006 and dominated the news in early October. Bloomberg.com wrote, "The October surprise came early this election year...."^[14] Allegations that both Republicans and Democrats had knowledge of Foley's actions months before the breaking of the story only fueled the speculation regarding the possibly politically motivated timing of the story's release.^[15]

Two studies by The Lancet on mortality in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq have been described as October surprises for the 2004 and 2006 elections.^[16] Les Roberts acknowledged that the 2004 study was timed to appear just before the presidential election,^[17] though he denied that it was meant to favor one candidate over another.^{[citation needed]} Although the studies used standard epidemiological methods, political critics have dismissed the studies based on a variety of alleged shortcomings.^[17]

Also, on November 1, a male prostitute alleged that preacher Ted Haggard had had sex with him. The reason for revealing the allegations was because of objection to Haggard's support for Colorado Amendment 43 (2006), an amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Colorado, which was being voted on in the 2006 November election. Although he initially denied it, Haggard later admitted that some of the accusations were true. Haggard was removed from several of his jobs. The amendment passed nevertheless.

Saddam Hussein verdict

News that the Saddam Hussein trial verdict would be rendered on November 5, 2006, just two days ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, led Tom Engelhardt of liberal magazine The Nation to dub it, on October 17th, the "November Surprise".^[18] In a White House Press gaggle on November 4, 2006, a reporter implied that the timing of the Saddam trial verdict may be an attempt by the White House to influence the outcome of the November election, to which White House Press Secretary Tony Snow replied "Are you smoking rope?"

Scott Horton, political commentator and law professor at the Columbia University Law School, commented, "That November 5 date is designed to show some progress in Iraq. This is the last full news-cycle day in the U.S. before the elections. It'll be Monday. And the American public will see Saddam condemned to death and see it as a positive thing."^[19]

Even before the announcement of the verdict, on Saturday November 4th, Snow denied that Sunday's expected verdict was tied to the election and said Iraq's judiciary is completely independent. "Are you telling me that in Iraq, that they're sitting around — I'm sorry, that the Iraqi judicial system is coming up with an October surprise?" Snow said, then he corrected his calendar reading. "A November surprise? Man, that's — wow."^[20]

Continuing accusations of the administration engineering the coincidence between the verdict and the election cycle surfaced later in an interview on CNN's Late Edition, to which Snow replied that "The idea is preposterous, that somehow we've been scheming and plotting with the Iraqis".^[21]

See also

• Opposition research
• Wag the Dog, a novel and film describing a fictional war started solely to distract attention from a Presidential scandal.
• Canadian Bacon, another film about a fictional war to distract attention from a Presidential scandal.

References

Bibliography

• Kissinger, Henry. 2003. Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War. With new and updated material. Simon and Schuster.

External links

• Russia's Prime Minister and October Surprise - Consortium News - May 15, 1999
• Beware an October Surprise from bin Laden - Joseph S. Nye, Harvard Kennedy School
• October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan. By Gary Sick.