By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — “October surprise” traditionally means a damaging unexpected element injected into a political campaign shortly before the November elections, with the hope that the target of the surprise wouldn’t be able to respond sufficiently and save his candidacy.
But can it be a surprise if it’s something right out where everyone could think about it — even if they’re discouraged by others from doing so?
Could this year’s surprise be nuclear war? Although a person profoundly hopes not, this hasn’t been a hidden issue after Russian President Vladimir Putin openly threatened the use of his nuclear fist in the war he started in Ukraine.
And how would the United States respond? Horribly, the prime nuclear power in the world has — this is simply truth, not insult — a babbling Democrat fool for president.
If you were going in for brain surgery, would you want a doctor who had trouble remembering basic details about his own family, surroundings and workplace, much less anything else, like the intricacies inside your skull?
Biden is commander in chief of an arsenal that could destroy the world. How might he react for a crucial split-second nuclear decision when he’d prefer to be slurping his dollops of gourmet ice cream and spouting every kind of nonsense?
How would he react if he were told that Putin was responding to America’s proxy war with Moscow by hitting Kyiv in a few minutes — or Washington itself? Would Biden even be allowed to make such a decision? Or does someone else actually call the shots inside the White House, and cognitively crippled Biden is only their cardboard cutout? If so, why do we need Biden as a titular president at all?
Some critics say the Biden clique chose comically inept Kamala Harris for vice president because the nation would fear shoving Biden aside and giving her his power. But what if he’d chosen some competent-appearing Democrat campaigner like Hawaii Cong. Tulsi Gabbard in 2020?
If he had, Gabbard probably would have ended up biting her tongue so hard over expanding policy disagreements that she’d have chewed it off by now. Because when she announced she was leaving the Democratic Party on October 11 due to what she called its elite warmongering wokeness, her list of its offenses covered just about every issue.
She included the accusation that this elite is “dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.”
Gabbard quickly began endorsing Republican candidates in these last weeks before the November 8 general election who weren’t “moderate” Mitt Romney types. She came to Arizona to give a strong endorsement to hard-hitting GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on October 18.
An ABC News report posted October 19 said Gabbard acknowledged that some told her it was “odd” she’d be campaigning here as a former Democrat for Lake, but she replied: “It’s only odd if you’re focused on the wrong things. If you’re paying attention, you recognize that what we share in common, Kari and I and every one of you, is that pride, and it is the courage. . . .
“It is clear eyes to recognize the threats to our safety, to our borders, to our communities, to our families and our kids that are coming from today’s so-called woke radical Democrat Party,” Gabbard was quoted.
The morning of October 19, Gabbard told Phoenix radio talk host James T. Harris (KFYI, 550 AM) that she warns of nuclear war danger wherever she goes. She said if Putin fires a nuclear weapon over the Ukraine battle, a nuclear world war will follow.
Gabbard said a skilled hand is needed to end the conflict, but it’s Biden in the White House.
One can only imagine how potential war-makers in both Moscow and Beijing are emboldened every day as they watch pathetic, squinting, elderly U.S. President Biden stumbling his way around physically, mentally, and verbally. Is Biden so cognitively impaired that he can’t understand how clownish he looks to the world?
Coincidentally, less than two hours after Gabbard spoke on KFYI, commentator Bill O’Reilly told his national radio audience that Biden is so confused, he doesn’t even know how his son Beau died, claiming he “lost his life in Iraq” when in fact the younger Biden died of brain cancer years later in a Maryland hospital.
Joe Biden also has claimed that Beau was U.S. attorney general when in fact he was Delaware attorney general. These may be intentional falsehoods as the insecure president keeps trying to puff up his stories. Or maybe he’s so lost in cognitive decline that he has little or no idea.
Gubernatorial candidate Lake repeatedly has referred to Biden as a “bumbling fool.” Also on October 19, the hosts of the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton national radio talk program said Lake is the best non-incumbent of either political party in the nation running in a state race.
They added that Lake has a strong chance to be a finalist for the GOP’s vice-presidential selection in 2024.
Those are powerful words about a woman who never has held political office. Moreover, Arizona’s politics are so complex that one may wonder if her strong conservative statements today are sincere. Perhaps so; people just can’t be sure yet.
But there’s a definite advantage for a candidate facing many cameras and microphones on the campaign trail who has done that already for three decades as a newscaster. To Lake, this isn’t a weird, scary world with Cyclops TV eyes challenging her. It’s another day at the office that she feels self-assured about.
This is like the difference between an experienced mechanic getting under the hood and me trying to figure out all that metal stuff.
Here in Arizona we hear that Phoenix TV’s Lake already has acquired a national political reputation. That was verified when I asked Virginia Catholic blogger Mary Ann Kreitzer for her opinion of the candidate. Almost all the way across the nation from Phoenix, Kreitzer knew what she wanted to say.
“I love Kari Lake! She is smart, articulate, and fearless,” Kreitzer said. “Arizona voted blue in the last national election, but Democrats didn’t do well in local races. Arizonans still embrace family issues and especially the kind of independence that ‘won the West.’ If Lake is faithful to her pro-life promises, she will be a champion for little ones in the womb and their moms.
“If the CDC mandates vaccines in the childhood schedule, Lake, who opposes the mandates, is likely to pick up scores of parents facing school-vaccine tyranny that endangers their children’s lives and health,” Kreitzer said. “Arizona parents have shown very little interest in jabbing their kids with the experimental gene-therapy drugs. Katie Hobbs, Lake’s opponent, shills for the ‘vaccine’ and is an abortion extremist who is too cowardly to debate the issues.
“Project Veritas did an undercover video of Hobbs that shows her literally running — not only from debates but from discussing politics with ‘anyone I don’t know’,” Kreitzer said. “It’s hilarious to see someone who wants to be governor who won’t even mention she’s a candidate to an Uber driver. Meanwhile, Joe Wolf, Hobbs’ head political consultant, says she’s pro-gun control but won’t talk about it because Arizona citizens are ‘crazy in love with their guns.’
“Every Arizonan should watch the Project Veritas video which shows exactly how unfit Hobbs is to be governor. https://youtu.be/nOEpagPWKjw,” Kreitzer said.
Hobbs’ determination to avoid appearing on the same debate stage as Lake has become almost comical. Would Hobbs dare to harm her own reputation this way unless she thought the fix already is in for her to win the election? Now that’s a downright unmentionable thought, but maybe it’s either that or Hobbs is as detached from reality as Biden.
The Citizens Clean Election Commission here traditionally stages a televised gubernatorial debate, but Hobbs refused to agree. So, according to the rules, Lake would show up and be given a half-hour Q-and-A interview by herself.
Surprise, Hobbs announced that she had arranged for her own separate show later on, on October 18, with Arizona PBS. Whereupon the Clean Elections Commission canceled Lake’s show. After all, how fair is it to let Hobbs watch Lake on TV and then come up with her own responses once she’s had time to think them over, instead of showing she can think on her feet in the same studio with her foe?
The elections commission went on to arrange a new debate with a different television outlet, set for October 23, after this hardcopy issue of The Wanderer went to press. If Hobbs again declines to appear, then Lake is to get the program for herself.
On the morning of October 19, radio talk host Mike Broomhead (KTAR, 92.3 FM) noted that after Hobbs made her own TV appearance the previous day, she avoided the media by taking the freight elevator.
Broomhead said he didn’t want to accuse Hobbs of fearing to debate Lake, but she’s giving that impression.
Even in a year that should be disastrous for Democratic candidates, a person often sees polling claiming that Democrats are ahead in, or at least breaking even in, races, including here in non-blue Arizona. Including the risible Katie Hobbs. The Wanderer asked a couple of sources about polling.
Voter Enthusiasm
Seth Leibsohn, a daily talk host on Phoenix-based KKNT (960 AM), mentioned the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race between Republican Mehmet Oz, MD, and Democrat stroke victim John Fetterman.
“This election will be the testing ground for something I’ve wondered a great deal about lately: whether we are still a center-right country or not,” Leibsohn said. “I cannot fathom how someone like John Fetterman, who is less articulate than Gabby Johnson from Rock Ridge, can be anywhere within reach of Mehmet Oz — in a state that gave us Rick Santorum not that long ago.
“That may mean we simply are not center-right anymore and a generation and a half of progressive education, media, and other culture has planted itself here,” Leibsohn said. “Or it may mean the polls are trying to tip the scales and are widely off, deliberately. I just can’t tell. But I do worry.”
Conservative Republican political consultant Constantin Querard said: “It is common for Democrats to lead in national polling or on generic ballots, usually by four to six points, largely because the polls are of registered voters, instead of likely voters, or because when they poll likely voters, a slightly greater number of Republicans actually show up and vote than do Democrats.
“It is one of the reasons we also look at voter enthusiasm to determine how things are going,” Querard said. “If you see national or generic polls that show Democrats ahead by more than six points or less than three points, then you should take that as an indication that they are or are not in favor. Which means when you see polls showing them ahead just one or two points, that’s an indication that Republicans are in better than usual shape.
“The Lake/Hobbs race is taking on national importance, with dueling appearances on NBC, CNN, and elsewhere,” Querard said. “Even the ‘ladies’ of The View were debating the merits of the candidates, so that is helping to attract high-profile appearances (Cruz, Trump, Gabbard, etc.) looking to boost Lake on the GOP side.”
Querard also cited the U.S. Senate race here, which usually has had Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly leading Republican challenger Blake Masters in poll results.
“The U.S. Senate race is increasingly competitive, which is good news for Blake Masters, of course, but it is really good news for all of the other statewide GOP candidates, because that is the GOP’s toughest race, and it would be reasonable to assume the other statewide candidates will perform better than Masters,” Querard said.
A Barrier
Finally, even though the current lack of border security continues to be a major campaign issue, the Biden administration told Arizona to remove some large metal shipping containers the state had installed in the Yuma area, to block illegal entry, and not to install any more.
The administration said it would take care of providing a barrier later.
Arizona rejected the Biden order and noted how tardy Washington, D.C., was to deal with the problem.
One might think that even Biden’s administration would know better than to inflame such an issue shortly before voting day. But are its ideologues so driven that they don’t care? Or that they have reason to believe some election wins already are in the bag?
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