Saturday, October 30, 2004
After a night's sleep on it, I'm convinced that the bin Laden video will not really shape the campaign. The coverage I've seen of it online has a certain evenness to it - the preferred spin is that it is rattling both campaigns, and that it does not help one in particular. Add that to the factors I noted yesterday, and it starts to seem that the net effect here is just an escalation of the tension level of both campaigns. Moreover, with the release three days before Election Day, there is the strong possibility of Iraq and campaign news balancing it out. Nothing's for certain, and I'd be interested to see polls on its impact. But I don't think this is the big October surprise that people feared.
(BTW: all the folks claiming that Bin Laden was somewhere in captivity all these months can do us the favor of reconsidering certain articles of faith now that it's clear he's still on the loose.)
(BTW: all the folks claiming that Bin Laden was somewhere in captivity all these months can do us the favor of reconsidering certain articles of faith now that it's clear he's still on the loose.)
