October is the month of autumnal pumpkin everything and Halloween-themed fun. But for some people, this month has brought a different kind of chill.
The past 10 months have been riddled with talk of building walls, confidential emails with State Department secrets and the fact that both major parties produced the most disliked presidential candidates in history.
In a poll published earlier this week by ABC News and The Washington Post, the disapproval rating for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is at 57 percent while Republican nominee Donald Trump hovers around 63 percent among registered voters.
Part of the American public’s nightmare is that these two people are essentially the only two choices.
And then there are the stomach-churning and at times blood-curdling reveals of both candidates’ pasts.
October surprise?
More like October nightmare.
The October surprise is the political term for the unearthing of a tape, piece of information or a world event that deeply impacts a presidential campaign.
In 2000, the uncovering of George W. Bush’s DUI was said to have cost the former Texas governor five states in the general election, according to Bush’s campaign strategist Karl Rove.
According to Politico, the stock market crash in 2008 led to Arizona Sen. John McCain committing a series of errors that only further damaged his chances at the White House.
October surprises are typically one huge incident. But this year? It seems Clinton and Trump were aiming to break a record.
An October surprise has happened seemingly every day.
The most notable so far was the uncovered tape of Trump from the Access Hollywood archives. The 2005 video and audio revealed Trump speaking with host Billy Bush, bragging about touching women inappropriately.
How cute of everyone to think that the Oct. 1 New York Times article on Trump’s 1995 tax returns would be the big surprise.
While the leaked tape was a bombshell to his campaign that left him scrambling to defend his actions and justify his remaining in the race, he’s still running for the highest office in the land.
Clinton hasn’t been completely unscathed either.
Emails are to Clinton’s campaign what Michael Myers or Jason is to the horror movie industry — they can’t be defeated, just endured for periods of time.
Every time she thinks she’s shaken off the pesky talk of emails during her stint as Secretary of State, Wikileaks publishes more.
Supporters from both sides have promised more surprises to come. Filmmaker Michael Moore announced his brand new documentary. CNN described it as “a one-man stage performance” about the 2016 election. Meanwhile, no one’s exactly sure how many more emails Wikileaks has and how many it will release over the next two weeks.
With surprises happening so early and so frequently in October, how any of the American voters still paying attention will survive the next few days remains to be seen.
