What if there's a major domestic terror event on or just preceding the U.S. elections

I've encountered this theme in some of the mass media.I don't have much input right now, but I thought this would be a good topic.Moose

I don't think there will be. But I do think we'll probably see one of a few things happen just before the election.1) We catch bin Laden. What a wild coincidence!2) We find WMDs in Iraq. What another wild coincidence!3) We go up to double-secret-probation high alert because the White House has found evidence of a REALLY SERIOUS IMPENDING TERRORIST ATTACK! Yet another amazingly wild coincidence!

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"Archeologists near mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon dated in Bonn. If genuine, it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read, 'To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.' The page has been universally condemned by church leaders."
-Rob Grant and Doug Naylor

IMHO, the biggest threat right now is the Olympics.The threat around the election is certainly real. It is almost taylor made for terrorists. There has been long lead times needed for preparation, known and published locations of public gathering, relatively soft targets, large crowds gathering in unfamilar locations and high media coverage. If I were AQ, I would have been working on this for the last four years.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I've read speculation from both sides of the aisle on this one, and I honestly don't really know how much it would sway either side. I personally found it somewhat peculiar that Bush investigated a means of delaying the elections if necessary. Of course the conspiracy theorists (hehe, like myself sometimes) can run wild with that one, esp. when we consider how elections have successfully endured a number of catastrophes and wars in the past (including the Civil War).I couldn't really speculate how it would effect the elections, and I'm skeptical it would have a similar effect as it did with Spain. On the same token, you might speculate (perhaps incorrectly) that Al Qaeda actually wants Bush to win instead of Kerry, if you follow the Al Qaeda group who bombed the Spanish trains:

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WE WANT BUSH TO WIN

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The statement said it supported U.S. President George W. Bush in his reelection campaign, and would prefer him to win in November rather than the Democratic candidate John Kerry, as it was not possible to find a leader "more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom."

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In comments addressed to Bush, the group said:

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"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilisation."

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"Because of this we desire you (Bush) to be elected."

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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040317/325/eotq9.html

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But I think it's probably safe to take this group's words with a grain of salt.The Christian Science monitor has a coupla very talented writers, and this article, IMO, is no exception:Not Found - CSMonitor.comSo if we're attacked, would it be a sign of the weakness of Bush's domestic defense policies? I'm inclined to say, "yep!", esp. when we consider that Bush is not fully funding his own Homeland Security. Bush's budge crisis is comin' to a high point, and he's going to need to continue cutting corners on a number of policies in order to keep the money flowing to Iraq, the military, and his tax cuts. It seems that Homeland Security is no exception.

I found this extra peculiar since he and his friends at the SC had him installed as president, because they said under no circumstances (even things like voter disenfranchisement) could there be delays... that in contradiction to an amendment which specifically addresses what happens if a choice is not made by inauguration.So here he flipflops again. Can't be delays when he isn't in the office, fine once he is. I agreed with most of your post but was sad to see this conservative propaganda piece stated as if it were true.Bush's Spanish lackey had been taking heat for supporting Bush's inane policies for some time. The socialist candidate had been growing in polls preceding the election, especially on his pledge to reverse Spain's policy of being lap dog to Bush.When the bombs went off Zapatera had a chance of winning anyway. So we have no real idea if any change actually occured, and if so, if it was enough to put him in office.But there is something more important here. The previous PM bungled the aftermath of the bombings. He made statements and tried to shift blame for clearly political reasons. After all the bombings showed that helping Bush didn't do ANYTHING for Spain... which is what he promised. So he tried to cover it up (at least through the elections) as another group's responsibility.THAT more than the bombings themselves, motivated some changes (this was voiced by a number of Spanish citizens)... though again it is unsure if the numbers would have altered Zapatera getting in or not.I am very worried about Spain being used as a picture of people giving into terrorism, when they simply voted their conscience on matters of policy.And it fuels Republicans saying everyone has to be extra worried about a terrorist attack, because it might put in a Democrat. I'm wondering if an attack did occur and suddenly everyone voted for Bush, would that be a sign of giving in to terror?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Thank you for the correction in regards to Spain. I had most certainly forgotten about that tidbit piece about their PM lying on the culprit of the bombings.

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And it fuels Republicans saying everyone has to be extra worried about a terrorist attack, because it might put in a Democrat. I'm wondering if an attack did occur and suddenly everyone voted for Bush, would that be a sign of giving in to terror?

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Hehe, excellent question.

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2) We find WMDs in Iraq. What another wild coincidence!

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You do realize that small quantities of "WMDs" have been found in Iraq? Most notably, the Poles have found small stocks of artillery shells with different forms of poisonous gasses, etc. Nothing major, like nuclear weapons or something, but still technically "WMDs".Of course, to think that any substantial amounts of "WMDs" couldn't be smuggled out of the country prior to the invasion or simply buried in the sand is a bit naive.

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3) We go up to double-secret-probation high alert because the White House has found evidence of a REALLY SERIOUS IMPENDING TERRORIST ATTACK! Yet another amazingly wild coincidence!

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I still don't understand why people complained when that terror alert was issued for financial institutions, etc in New York recently. I personally thought it was handled well since it wasn't simply a blanket alert or anything. If an alert HADN'T been issued and something did happen, the current administration would be taking even more heat for that. Kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.Besides, does issuing terror alerts really help Bush? Can it really be considered a political move? I would think that the more terror alerts issued by Bush, the more people would be scared and come to the conclusion that he wasn't helping things at all, things are only getting worse. But if there weren't any terror alerts, and the level went down, one couldn't be blamed for thinking that things were getting better. If that makes sense (probably not...I'm Polish!...my excuse for all my inadequicies...like spelling) So not that I support Bush in everything he does (ahem..stem cell research and gay marriage bans..ahem), but I don't see how he can be faulted for this.

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"The religion of the invisible pink unicorn is based both on faith and logic...through faith we know that the unicorn is pink, while logic tells us it is invisible."

This is not accurate. What were found is shells which had more than likely (it is the leading theory even by US authorities) accidentally been placed among conventional shell... and if I remember right, intended for scrapping anyway.The (very few) munitions were old, pre GulfWar1, when everyone knew they had such things, so it is not a surprise to find such shells. Almost like finding an arrowhead at ancient NAmerican battlesites. And in this case the agents were so degraded that when released they caused a few people in the immediate vicinity to be sick... none seriously.This places them beyond "WMD" status. It wasn't even part of the stockpiles being discussed. I happened to be watching CNNEurope as the pending alert was announced and there was an interview with Howard Dean ongoing at the time. He said it would be political, and noted (predicted) the general warnings that were going to be given.Then Ridge gave his warning and damn if Dean wasn't right on the nose. While a few specific areas were mentioned, they were ones already known to be under threat and the warnings of what to look for were so general as to be unusable. This and ensuing revelations about the terror alert have emphasized how bad that alert was:1) Most information 3 years old... more recent information adding nothing specific to act on.2) In the rush to give a political boost based on "results" against terror... and what are they doing in a terror alert?... they revealed a mole who was invaluable to the war on terror, setting us back in real time months or years, and forcing the hands of the British to rollup a network in a sloppy fashion which assured them not catching everything (THEY have said this).Look at those two points very closely. It shows they decided to buy credit with the public at the cost of real effectiveness in the war on terror.Personally I was already furious before that. Ridge began almost exactly as Dean had predicted (general hints), and what's worse (did you see his announcement?) spent more time detailing how great the Bush administration is and why only they can help fight the war on terror. The last half (perhaps a bit more) was purely political speech for the coming election. Yes, especially when the "alerts" contain equal to more time spent on telling the american public how BUSH is great, and without him we wouldn't have so many successes.But let's get to the generalities. Scaring the public to get it to rally to the current heads of power is old, very old. You'd think it would backfire as you suggested, but it generally doesn't when one is saying "look at this THREAT, I am the SOLUTION." It's even better when you go out and have wars and thus show people killed and leaders captured in that effort. The leader must be strong.Hitler ran on that "platform" and so has Sharon. So has the Taliban/AlQueda/BinLaden and so did Hussein. They were all quite successful at using it. Thus it is not surprising to see Bush using such a tried and true propaganda tool.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Another point to add I think is the "safety in the President we "think" we know" defense. In a time of crisis or perceived threat of a crisis people are more likely to stick with a President they know than with one they don't know.

Yeah, the unknown is always potentially scarier than a known bad.I still think Bush's track record ought to say enough, there have been numerous unqualified failures, but then I guess it comes down to people's personal opinion if Bush's head is half empty or half full.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Yes, especially when the "alerts" contain equal to more time spent on telling the american public how BUSH is great, and without him we wouldn't have so many successes.

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But let's get to the generalities. Scaring the public to get it to rally to the current heads of power is old, very old. You'd think it would backfire as you suggested, but it generally doesn't when one is saying "look at this THREAT, I am the SOLUTION." It's even better when you go out and have wars and thus show people killed and leaders captured in that effort. The leader must be strong.

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Just ran across this story that might actually conflict with that common sentiment:Page not found - Chicago Sun-TimesAgain, I'm not really sure if these threats will really help Bush or not, even though conventional wisdom suggests that they would.

I can only hope that the study is better than what I read at that link. It didn't show anything useful.First of all it compared favorable impressions of Bush when a REAL CRISIS was going on (whether he made it or not), to a time when there are none but the ongoing occupation. This would be showing that (let's take an analogy) that people in the beginning of Hitler's rise to power saw him as a solution to a real crisis (the horrific poverty) and by the end not feeling like he really helped them out.As far as whether terror alerts help Bush or not was not addressed at all... especially in the way I described them working.It would not be surprising that a Bush supporter would feel like there is less chance there will be an attack, than a Kerry supporter. That's what makes them a Bush supporter. They did not appear to ask the more relevant question, "do you fear there will be a greater chance of attack if Bush remains president?". Those would have been more interesting stats.All Bush needs to do is get people associating the risk of attack with Kerry, he is NOT associating it with himself. He is the SOLUTION.Meanwhile Kerry supporters (or antiBush people) might naturally feel a greater threat of attack, because they think he is botching everything and making the world a less safe place.They could have even asked, "do you feel there is a threat to the US that needs a strong leader to take care of the problem?" That could also determine whether the alerts were more/less likely to trigger the reaction I was speaking about among Bush supporters.And in this case one could then start gauging the neutrals as well.Ahhhhhhh, social research. It's tricky to do. Like I said, I hope the actual research methods were better than what I read. I didn't see anything of value, except perhaps a trend in not liking Bush.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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Ahhhhhhh, social research. It's tricky to do.

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True true. And even trickier to interpret in a meaningful way!