November Surprise

It's actually called the "October Surprise", which is when political parties wait until just before an election (i.e. October) to do something or say something that will influence the voting population. The "Mark Foley scandal" was reputed to be the Democrats October Surprise. Republicans have been accused of raising the "Terror Alert" to orange (or red) in previous Octobers just before the last 2 elections.

This election, it looks like the Republicans actually have a November surprise planned, by getting the Iraq government to delay the reading of the verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial from October 16th up to Novermber 5th... just 2 days before the election. (Well, maybe they needed those extra 2½ weeks to figure out if he is really guilty.)

Actually, the reason the Republicans are doing this (it is hard to assume they aren't) is twofold: One reason is, of course, that watching Saddam's verdict for his crimes is a positive thing for Americans to see. More importantly, however, is the second thing, which is the likelihood that Iraq will erupt into riots and attacks by pro-Saddam fighters still operating in Iraq, which is a negative thing for Americans to see. Therefore, (I'm guessing) the Iraqi government is issuing the verdict (the good thing) before the November 7th election, while trying to get the almost-guaranteed riots and violence (the bad thing) to happen after the election.

I personally think this whole "November Surprise" thing is not that big a deal. The vast majority of Americans have been following Saddam's trial only peripherally, if at all. Hearing him pronounced guilty of all the things we already knew he was guilty of barely ranks as news in my book.

(What would be interesting is if Saddam amazingly is found innocent right before the election. What is more realistic (and more damaging for the Republicans) is that the terrorists fighting in Iraq might not actually go along with the Republicans' plan during this election cycle by waiting 3 days until Wednesday morning to start their rampage. Instead, voters might be going to the polls on Tuesday evening after watching the evening news about "the worst day of bloodshed in Iraq since the war began" or something like that.)