With just about four weeks to go before the presidential election, various people are predictably rolling out their “October Surprise” scenarios. The most prominent such person is Hillary Clinton.
That is not a shock to many who believe her to be behind the “Russia Collusion” surprise unleashed on Donald Trump in summer 2016. That “surprise” was a known and proven hoax, orchestrated to take down the Trump campaign. For those who may have forgotten that sordid episode — or who seek to pretend it never happened — I suggest they read the Durham Report, released in May 2023.
While doing an interview with “Firing Line” host Margaret Hoover on PBS, the former first lady and Secretary of State spoke of an “October Surprise” to come, speculating that “there will be concerted efforts to distort and pervert Kamala Harris, who she is, what she stands for, what she’s done.”
Surely Clinton knows that tens of millions of American voters — along with a number of grizzled political pundits from both sides of the aisle — find that laugh-out-loud absurd. “Distort” and “pervert” what Harris “stands for.” Are you kidding me?
Harris, the shadowy puppet masters behind her and much of the media are working 24/7 to ensure that voters never learn what she “stands for.” Furthermore, Clinton herself endorsed that “hide from the media and voters” strategy. While on the Kara Swisher podcast just last month, Clinton forcefully declared that it’s a “double standard” to ask Harris to explain her unexplained policies.
A “double standard”? Somehow Clinton and others on the left find it insulting that the public should want to know what their potential next commander in chief believes and what she would do if given responsibility over a world on fire — on fire in large part because of the failed policies, mistakes and misdeeds of her own administration. There is political hubris, and then there is a complete and purposeful disrespect of the voters.
More alarmingly, Clinton also suggested that the media needs a “consistent narrative” about the “danger” that Trump poses to the country in the coming weeks. Maybe Clinton is slipping or is not paying attention to current events. The mainstream media's coverage of Trump has been relentlessly negative since 2015. It has never stopped pushing that “consistent narrative.”
Clinton also warned that countries such as Russia, Iran and China may fuel disinformation on social media, seeking to influence the election. Wow, right back to her disgraced and debunked 2016 playbook.
In spite of (and often because of) the personal and partisan histrionics of Clinton, tens of millions of Americans have cracked the code. They realize they are being played by her, Harris, the media and the entrenched liberal elite. More than that, despite any “double standard,” they are deeply troubled that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), are hiding from the media while taking voters’ basic need for information for granted.
Nor, one can surmise, do these voters like that Trump has been subjected to a massive smearing and lawfare campaign engineered to take him down. In similar fashion, didn’t like Democrats' smear campaign and ballot-suppression efforts against former Democratic-turned-independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who, by no coincidence at all, is now part of Team Trump.
Because these tens of millions of voters are on to the game, the “October Surprise” for this election is that no “surprise” will matter. These voters are not going to be swayed one way or the other by some “scandalous” news leaked in the dead of night from a faceless operative.
These voters are all about creating a “November Surprise.” They can’t wait to prove the election polls wrong once again. They can’t wait to be part of the under-counted or purposely ignored Trump vote. They can’t wait to bring family and friends to the polls. They can’t wait to tell the exit pollsters that their “lives were much better four years ago during the Trump administration.”
They can’t wait to celebrate on the night of Nov. 5, knowing their future and the future of their children will start improving again come Jan. 20. No matter the “October Surprise” to come — real or imagined — it will be trumped by the “November Surprise.” And that will be no surprise at all.
Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.
