Can Hillary survive FBI’s ‘October Surprise?’

I will be humbled if you read my commentary this Sunday for I know you are paying all your attention to American media ahead of that country’s crunch election on Tuesday; Hillary or Trump, who will be America’s next President? A Chinese magician’s monkey chose the latter. But before I poke my nose deeper into Uncle Sam’s business, a moment of silence for Mzee Bartin Makuza’s passing, five days after my light commentary on his magnificent plaza; may his soul rest in eternal peace. Now, last Sunday I gave Serena Hotel some negative commentary, when I described their service on the night of the Jazz Junction as ‘one-star.’ Well, on Monday afternoon, as I headed out to have lunch, I received a heartwarming call from them that made me regret my lament. “My name is Dorothy. I am calling to apologize for the bad experience you had at our place last Friday, but most of all, to thank you for the feedback. Would you mind to have lunch on us, this afternoon? We would really appreciate the opportunity to win back your confidence,” she said. You wouldn’t turndown such a warm request, would you? So I had free lunch at Serena and I was also introduced to the hotel’s new ‘Brunch’ service available every Sunday from 11am to 3pm with free Champaign all at an unbelievable price. If I owned a business, I would invest a lot in hearing from angry customers. Now, back to Uncle Sam’s affair; on Tuesday, America goes to polls to reluctantly decide between two unmusical candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. To be honest, it is a tough choice and I don’t envy anyone for being an American this week. If you enjoy reading a really good book, look for me. When you find me, greet me by my pet name and talk to me nicely. With that, I could consider lending you a book that I bought during my last sojourn in London; Tim Weiner’s ‘Enemies; A history of the FBI.’ After a date with that, Weiner’s book, you would have a clear idea why, with only a few days to Election Day, FBI Director James Comey, a lawyer, decided to throw the spanner in the works of an already messy campaign, with his letter regarding Hillary Clinton’s email saga. Even if Comey loses his job, in coming days, by resigning, as it is widely expected, his action will forever be remembered for helping decide America’s arguably most divisive election. Should Donald Trump win this election, he will have Comey to ‘grope’ for his victory. But there is history to all this, traceable from as early as 1800; it is called the ‘October Surprise.’ In American Political Jargon, an ‘October surprise’ is a news event that is deliberately publicized, often occurring spontaneously, to influence the outcome of an election. Constitutionally, November 8 is the official election date in USA. October, therefore, is the most dangerous month to a candidate’s campaign as ‘surprises’ often scandalous by nature, are released in the last two weeks before election day. In a chat group with a couple of American friends, we agreed that the 2016 election will always be remembered for generating the most brutal ‘October Surprises’ in America’s electoral history; this, we also agreed, is mainly because both candidates had closets full of skeletons. Was it not for space constraints, we would have gone through some of America’s most famous ‘October surprises.’ But let me recommend three articles on the subject ‘October Surprises’ beginning with one by the Washington Times’ commentator Wesley Pruden, published on October 3, under the headline; ‘And now the season of October Surprises.’ The next day, on October 4, Politico Magazine ran another titled, ‘15 October Surprises That Wreaked Havoc on {US} Politics.’ The US-Today, on November 1, had one under the headline, ‘Clinton’s email and the history of October Surprises.’ In African electoral politics, election rigging often means either ballot-stuffing or political gerrymandering, a process of creating electoral districts in an attempt to establish a political advantage over rival parties. This often leads to bloodshed. The US has always lambasted the African electoral practice as flawed and undemocratic. According to American political theory, democracy should not be ‘moderated’ because the people must be seen to freely decide and their will to prevail. Fortunately, the Trump vs. Hillary context has revealed that the US electoral democracy is actually not much different from our African practice. It’s heavily moderated. Beyond name-calling, we have noted that there were groups determined to empty skeletons from each candidate’s closets, and create the worst ‘October surprise.’ WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence claimed to be on Trump’s side have consistently unleashed secrets, in small poisonous dozes about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and the FBI letter, with just days to the election, can be seen as the climax of a well orchestrated ‘October Surprise’ series. Meanwhile, Clinton’s campaign, buoyed by Trump’s scandalous past, was hoping to knockout the Republican using sexual assault accusations and Trump’s locker room sex talk video was meant to be Hillary’s knockout punch. Unfortunately, the ferocity of the email scandal forced Hillary to throw her knockout punch earlier than planned; Trump staggered to the ropes but managed to recover just in time to throw a counter upper-cut. The umpire’s verdict is out this week. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Can Hillary survive FBI’s ‘October Surprise?’