They're not exactly "October surprises." The National Weather Service might have understated Hurricane Helene's ferocity, but the war against Hezbollah and the port strike didn't blindside anyone. Nevertheless, each of these events has the potential to upend a presidential campaign.
And it's not Donald Trump's.
Remember when Joe Biden promised to restore a sense of "normalcy" to the country after the pandemic? How "normal" does this feel? Eight million illegal aliens are in the country with the Department of Homeland Security losing track of hundreds of thousands of them. The recent news that 15,000 illegals who had been convicted of murder were waved through the gates while another 1,500 are walking around after being accused of murder. Thousands of rapists were allowed into the U.S. while untold thousands more were convicted of violent crimes.
This is not "normal" by any means, and pretending it is only makes the entire situation creepier.
Now we have a dockworker's strike, which Kamala Harris supported, that threatens to reignite inflation. And if that doesn't do the trick, how about a shooting war in the Middle East between Iran and Israel that would drive the price of a barrel of oil back above $100?
Do you notice something about all of these crises? The president and his anointed successor Harris aren't doing much about them. Certainly, Biden and Harris are making all the right noises about aid for the hurricane victims. They are constantly demonstrating that they "feel the pain" of victims.
But it's a funny thing how the national media had pilloried George Bush for his response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when so many were left crying for help. Today, there's nary a peep from the mainstream media about people all over the Southeast who are without power, water, or access to food and medical help.
“Look at the World today — Look at the missiles flying right now in the Middle East, look at what’s happening with Russia/Ukraine, look at Inflation destroying the World. NONE OF THIS HAPPENED WHILE I WAS PRESIDENT!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday. His presidency was hardly a cakewalk, but it ended four long years ago. In the here and now, Harris has big problems.
Each of the problems looming over the White House race might qualify for the cliche October surprise. Yet their impact is hard to assess since this campaign’s many twists have yet to have a decisive impact. Trump has, for example, been convicted of a crime and escaped two assassination attempts. An incumbent president running for reelection abandoned his campaign a few months before Election Day.
Still, after the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night, there are now no scheduled set-piece occasions that offer the prospect of a major twist in the campaign. That means effectively navigating the crises that do arise could become even more vital.
Any development could in theory take on outsize significance among the perhaps several hundred thousand voters in a handful of swing states that will decide this election. Harris has a narrow lead in some national polls, but most swing state surveys show no clear leader and margins within sampling errors.
Biden took the extraordinarily unwelcome step of signaling to Israel not to attack Iran's nuclear infrastructure. "No" was his one-word answer when asked if the U.S. would support such a strike.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has begun ignoring the importunings of his closest and most important ally. His attitude appears to be that if Biden wants to manage my war, he should move to Israel and run for office against him.
Whatever Netanyahu decides to do in the next few days, he will do it without input from the Biden-Harris administration.
Meanwhile, the port strike is 100% wholly owned and gifted to the American people by Biden-Harris. They have emboldened the dockworkers to ask for the moon (a 77% raise and no automation) which might send prices soaring even higher than they will rise with a potential war between Israel and Iran. This is all on Harris-Biden, and telling Americans that workers who make $81,000 a year ($200,000 with overtime) need to be treated "fairly" is a political non-starter.
If just one of these issues explodes, Harris is virtually doomed.
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