The War Room

OCTOBER SURPRISE!

As many of you political junkies know, there is something in modern political campaigns known as the 'October Surprise'.

In the fall of 1980, it was alledged after by many Democrats that Ronald Reagan and George Bush conspired to sabotage Jimmy Carter's attempts to get hostages released from Iran until after the election in November.

As lore goes, many believed that had Carter gotten the hostages free just before the election, it would have been an 'October Suprise' and he perhaps could have beaten Ronald Reagan and won a second term.

Now, this is all conspiracy theory stuff that has never been proven and was eventually discredited by numerous bi-partisan and journalistic investigations.

Nevertheless, the theory of the October Surprise still abounds in political campaigns. The Democrats pulled one on George W. Bush the Friday night before the final weekend of the 2000 election campaign regarding an old DUI charge. The Liberals in Canada pulled one on Stephen Harper in the 2004 election by releasing the Randy White tape on the Friday before the polls opened. The goal of course, is to release the 'surprise' late on the Friday afternoon in order to monopolize the last weekend of the campaign's news cycle and derail your opponent. To be fair, I am sure that there are also instances where the right has done it to the left; these are just the most high profile cases I am thinking of right now.

Nevertheless, expect an October Surprise from the Liberals to Stephen Harper next Friday afternoon or sometime thereof.

As I said to some good friends of ours last night, I sure hope nobody out there has doctored photos of Stephen coming out of a strip club in the last couple of years. Or worse yet, real photos of him coming out of church with a Bible in his hand on Sunday morning.

Things have at best been consistant with the current poll numbers but we are not out of the woods yet. This is the week when all guns will be blazing. We have already seen a group of 'concerned Canadians' led by the neo-Marxist Maude Barlow come out against Stephen Harper. Today, I read that environmentalist Elizabeth May, while receiving the Order of Canada broke down on stage and warned that,

"Mr. Harper's policies are not just a threat to Canada, but to the world..."

These reports I usually file under the column of 'You know you are on the right side when..."

Nevertheless this, like the election of George W. Bush a year ago, would represent a massive rejection by the public of the relativist values of the Baby Boomer generation. Even if it is only a strong minority. To the Trudeau generation, this is it, the end game. But we still cannot waver. There are still nine days to go in this campaign and anyone who is relaxing on their laurels at this point needs to be shaken awake.

I still will only allow myself to be cautiously optimistic. We need 'the big one' and now we can see the media (Toronto Star, CBC, Ibbitson) start the fear stories.

Having said that, Stephen Harper has done us all proud.

As for me, I am still waiting for the group of concerned Toronto artists to come forth with lil' Road to Avonlea herself at the helm.

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 1:58 PM