Opinion: Dumping Cold Water On Trump's October Surprise
Just when things were beginning to go so well for GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney, look who is back to grab the headlines – Donald Trump. While “The Donald” – as he is often called by members of the press – may mean well, there are few distractions he has caused during the presidential process of 2012 that have actually assisted his designated Party – the Republican Party – get ahead.
Most notably, he was chastised for drawing out the “birther” issue much too long when the rest of the nation eventually didn’t seem to care where President Barack Obama was really born – be it Hawaii, Kenya, or elsewhere. They just wanted the issue to go away so that they could get back to “hoping” for “change” with the dying economy and job market in this country. Battling where Obama was born was not important to many people when Donald Trump tended to make it his life’s ambition to prove Obama was not born in the United States.
In between, he held headlines by teasing that he would run for president on the Republican ticket, then actually attempting to do it, and finally threatening to run as a third party spoiler candidate when all else failed. Gratefully, he ended up not running for president because the Republican Party ended up choosing a very viable candidate – Mitt Romney – and the party obviously wouldn’t have benefitted from having a spoiler.
Instead, Trump embraced the party’s candidate – to an extent – and fell from the political pages’ headlines – for a time. Some would say, like a bad penny – he keeps coming back, and – by coming back now – his timing couldn’t be worse. It’s not good that Trump keeps coming back and distracting us from the candidate Mitt Romney, unless – of course – “The Donald” really has something this time. If he does, it’s a first.
Myself, I’m not going to hold my breath in expectation that Trump’s Monday morning threat on Fox television of having an “October surprise” regarding President Obama will amount to anything. After all, the hyped-Trump headlines have too often been a disappointment.
Donald Trump was heard on Fox television on Monday morning to say that he has “very, very big” news regarding President Barack Obama. When asked if it could be damaging to Obama’s candidacy in the eleventh hour of this campaign, Trump would only say “possibly”. Then he followed up on Tuesday by saying he would make his announcement around noon. He said the timing of the announcement is not material to his statement.
After all the embarrassment Donald Trump was caused by President Barack Obama at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner where the featured skit was Obama bashing Trump over his “birther” allegations, it goes without saying that Trump would love to “get even” with Obama – and love to be a big part of helping defeat President Obama in 2012.
While Trump may have an “October surprise” that will destroy President Obama’s reelection campaign for the White House, I don’t think it’s going to be much more than seeing Trump get the headlines for part of the day, again.
After all, if Trump really had something on Obama, I don’t think he’d be able to hold it in. We would probably already know by now. If, in fact, Trump has nothing of worth that equates to an “October surprise”, it is hoped that he will quickly get off the national stage and relinquish the attention back to Mitt Romney who’s trying so very hard to win this election without distracting sideshows. He’s getting enough of those from his competitor.
About Scott Paulson
Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
