Byron York: CIA Guy Who Gave Democrats a Premise for the First Trump Impeachment Talks to WP

Jacob B. | 2:28 PM on October 20, 2024

It is October. Whether this qualifies as an "October Surprise" can be debated.

Remember the whistleblower? The CIA guy who gave Democrats a premise for the first Trump impeachment--the one even Liz Cheney voted against? Dems insisted he must remain anonymous. Now, with election near, he talks to WP. Still wants to be anonymous. https://t.co/8DC3L8I02E
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 20, 2024

The timing of some stuff matters. An "October Surprise" is thought of as an attention-getting story about a candidate that falls out of the closet in the weeks preceding an election. A query of the phrase in question, using a Google search engine, reveals a recently published article by Rutgers University about the phenomenon, what it means and its history.

The term was popularized in 1980. As president, Jimmy Carter could not get the Iranian hostages released, and his failure was one of the main reasons he was losing in the polls to Ronald Reagan. The October Surprise was going to be his last-minute success in getting them out. Obviously, it never happened.

October Surprise is a phrase that has become synonymous with presidential politics in the modern era.

How much impact October Surprise-style stories have on an election can be analyzed. Perhaps one test of the viability of an October Surprise is whether it is a poll shifter. On the other hand, if polls are inaccurate, they may or may not bake into their results the actual impact something has or does not have on the electorate. There should be a healthy amount of skepticism of the thought that millions of Americans switch their voting intention from one candidate of preference to another based on headlines that appear in the final stretch of a campaign.

A key point is that timing matters. A free press is afforded freedom, and that freedom comes with the responsibility that it not be abused. Misleading, ill-timed, or distorted material may not register a blip on the electoral radar, but it can do tremendous damage to the credibility of its purveyors.