The October Surprise: A Missed Opportunity and What it Says About the GOP Establishment

Please note that I make an assumption throughout: That, if known about before the election,  the Petraeus affair — political scandal with far reaching implications — could have swung in Romney’s favor. In theory, if we use the 332 to 206 electoral votes tally, it need to have only reversed the popular vote in a minimum of four battleground states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and New Hampshire for example) for Romney to have walked away with it.

Reading this piece I found out (and maybe this is common knowledge by now, to which I am hopefully only fashionably late) that the leadership of the Republican Party (meaning Eric Cantor, but I don’t doubt for a second he was the only one) knew about the Petraeus Affair before the election (the idea being that the scandal, including its possible relation to the Benghazi incident, which given the fact that. From this I can make many speculations. There may be more possibilities, but these are just the ones I thought of.I may not be the only one making at least some of these connections. The way I went about this may seem strange, but I hope you will be patient with me. 

THE HYPOTHESES

1. The leadership of the Republican Party was told not to disclose this information to the public by the FBI. At this point they had two options;

1.a. They could have done what they were told and not disclosed the information.

1.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

1.b. They could have leaked this information through channels not traceable to themselves.

1.b.1. This scenario obviously did not play out. Why not?

2. The leadership of the Republican Party was told not to disclose this information to the public by the Romney Campaign. At this point they would have had three options;

2.a. They could have done what they were told and not disclosed the information.

2.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

2.b. They could have openly disclosed this information thinking that it would help the Romney Campaign. The Romney Campaign does not have the same authority as the FBI.

2.b.1. This scenario obviously did not play out. Why not?

2.c. They could have  leaked this information thinking that it would help the Romney Campaign. The Romney Campaign does not have the resources or expertise of the FBI to discover the leaker.

2.c.1. This scenario obviously did not play out. Why not?

3. The leadership of the Republican Party decided on its own accord to not disclose this information to the public. At this point they would have had one option;

3.a. They could have kept the information to themselves and not disclosed it.

3.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public?

THE ANALYSIS

Given that the information was not disclosed, the still possible hypotheses are 1.a., 2.a., and 3.a., and their extensions, 1.a.1., 2.a.1., and 3.a.1. Keep in mind that the “they” is the Republican leadership and the “information” is the Petraeus affair.

1.a. They could have done what they were told [by the FBI] and not disclosed the information.

1.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

2.a. They could have done what they were told [by the Romney Campaign] and not disclosed the information.

2.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

3.a. They could have kept the information to themselves and not disclosed it.

3.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public?

So what we have is three possible reasons why the Republican leadership may not have disclosed this information to the Public before November 6 (Election Day).

In hypothesis 1.a., why wouldn’t they have disclosed the information? The obvious answer, if we assume hypothesis 1.a. is correct, is that the information was confidential and the FBI, who in theory could have prosecuted them, told them not to. But in hypothesis 1.b. I brought up the possibility of them leaking the information in a way not traceable to them. And I asked Why didn’t they just do this? Here, the answer may not be so obvious, so a new round of speculation and hypotheses is necessary. That will come later. Just keep the question in your mind: Why didn’t the Republican Party leadership disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?

In hypothesis 2.a., why wouldn’t they have disclosed the information? The obvious answer, if we assume hypothesis 2.a. is correct, is that they did not want to alienate the Mitt Romney Campaign. But this creates two entirely new questions. Would the Republican Leadership rather win the Presidential election and temporarily alienate their candidate, but who might later thank them for their services, or would they rather be on good terms with their candidate throughout the Presidential election but potentially have him lose and fade away from the scenery forever because of it? This question is related to later questions, so I will attempt to answer it when I ask those later questions. The second entirely new question is Why would the Romney campaign itself not wish to have this information disclosed? There are two possible answers. The first is that they thought it would backfire and look like dirty politics. The second answer I will address later. Just bear in mind the question (Why would the Romney campaign not want a disclosure?).

Back to the first answer to the second entirely new question again. I will reformulate that answer into yet another question: Why would they claim that this would backfire and look like dirty politics when it could (at least I assume) easily be made to look like the information was not leaked by anyone even connected to the Romney campaign or the GOP? The first possible answer is that they actually thought it would look like dirty politics, in which case I maintain they were unwilling to take any risks (which begs the question Why is the Romney campaign so mealy mouthed when supposedly the whole conservative movement has their backs and is counting on them to do anything to win?) or they just said that (i.e., they lied) to convince the Republican leadership to keep its mouth shut (which begs the question, one I already asked you to remember, only this time replace “Republican Leadership” with “Romney campaign”: Why didn’t the Romney campaign disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?).

Let me refresh once on the questions that I want you to keep asking yourself:

Why didn’t the Republican Party leadership disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?

Would the Republican Leadership rather win the Presidential election and temporarily alienate their candidate, but who might later thank them for their services, or would they rather be on good terms with their candidate throughout the Presidential election but potentially have him lose and fade away from the scenery forever because of it?

Why would the Romney campaign not want a disclosure?

Why is the Romney campaign so mealy mouthed when supposedly the whole conservative movement has their backs and is counting on them to do anything to win?

Why didn’t the Romney campaign disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?

I will condense these into just two questions and then move on to analysis of hypothesis 3.a.:

Why didn’t the Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign want this information disclosed?

Would the Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign rather have the White House in GOP control or would they rather continue to be glass jawed, tiptoeing, dishonest, feckless, has-been losers just so nobodies toes get stepped on?

These are the only two questions you will now need to remember. Moving on to the final hypothesis. I will remind you that “they” refers to the Republican leadership and the “information” refers to the Petraeus affair.

In hypothesis 3.a., why wouldn’t they have disclosed the information? The answer is far from obvious and by this time you have probably forgotten what hypothesis 3.a. was, so let me put it into the form of a clear, easily understood question:

Why wouldn’t the Republican leadership, assuming neither the FBI nor the Romney campaign, told them not to, just disclose the information of their own accord?

I will now attempt to answer this question along with the two I asked you to remember. For they are in essence, all the same question.

Unfortunately, I must first confess that there is, yet again, more than one possible answer. But I assure you, they lead me to the same conclusion.

First possible answer: The Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign did not have what it takes to win. Whether they were too stupid or too cowardly, they blew their chance of an October surprise because they didn’t think they could handle the disclosure of the information without either incriminating themselves or looking like dishonorable politicians. Despite of the fact that they told their constituents, and let their pundits tell their audiences that Barack Obama had to go in order to save the Republic, they refused to give all that it takes. They were undeserving of the trust that was given to them.

Second possible answer: The Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign did not want to win. They blew their chance of an October surprise because they had deliberately set themselves up for a fall from the start. As conspiratorial as this sounds, it is one of the conclusions I have reached from looking at the evidence. on the whole, it is just one possibility among many and therefore is not necessarily the most likely.

THE CONCLUSION

The GOP Establishment is a cynical group of people, which is why, though they may have wanted Romney to win (and not because they care about this country, but because they are cronies), they decided, perhaps using a cost benefit analysis of sorts, that it was much better for them, all of whom will be comfy and cozy no matter what happens in the next four years, to have this country under the Obama administration for another term and keep themselves free or prosecution, ridicule, or damage to their credibility and reputations. So they either thought there was a genuine difference between Obama (as a liberal) and Romney (as a conservative) but didn’t care because “they’ve got theirs” already, or that there was not enough difference between Obama (a moderate fascist) and Romney (a moderate fascist) for them to actually stick there neck out for Romney.

If there is one thing you take away from this it should be that these men (and women) are NOT public servants. They are thugs of the lowest order who dress, speak, and act nicely, but have no scruples and probably no soul. But I didn’t need the Petraeus Affair to help me conclude that.