The Racist Double-Standards of Election '08

By Andrew Lam, New America Media. Posted November 4, 2008.

The October surprise came a day late and a dollar short, but nevertheless it was calculated for maximum effect in the news cycle -- a story broke on Saturday can last all the way to Monday -- and on Nov. 1st it's just a few days before the election so it'll be memorable when folks go to the polls.

Or maybe not, given the amnesiac characteristic of the American people.

The story: that Obama's father's half sister, Ms. Zeituni Onyango, his half aunt, whom he met once in Kenya, is living illegally in the U.S. Worst, she made a $265 dollar contribution to his campaign and now the campaign is returning it to her. An internal investigation is being conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office to determine the source of the leak.

Ms. Onyango is not considered a felon but after the court rejected her application for political asylum she didn't leave and now has committed what's considered an "administrative violation" of the immigration law.

But the bigger crime is for her, of course, to be related to Senator Barack Obama.

Illegal immigration being the hot button issue upon which neither McCain nor Obama pushed much during their campaign -- it's a lose-lose proposition: the moment you talk about it, you'll turn large swaths of people off. Depending which side of the issue you take, you'll lose voters one way or another. Whoever leaked the information from the immigration office, it was timed perfectly.

The term October surprise has been in used since 1972. The then presidential election between Republican incumbent Richard Nixon and Democrat George McGovern gave birth to the term. After years of negotiations with North Vietnam to end the Vietnam war, Henry Kissinger, presidential National Security Adviser, declared "Peace is at hand," at a press conference 12 days before election day. It helped Nixon to achieve a 20 points lead in the nationwide popular vote. Peace it turned out was not at hand until 3 years later but since then, the term "October surprise" has been in used.

In 1992 when incumbent George Bush senior ran against Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan's defense secretary Caspar Weinberger was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal, just four days before the election. Weinberger was indicted on felony charges for having lied to the Iran-Contra independent counsel during its investigation. Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh was accused by Republicans of timing Weinberger's indictment to hurt George H.W. Bush's re-election chances. Bush later pardoned Weinberger just days before his trial was scheduled to begin.

All things considered, the Nov 1st surprise of 2008 is not so shocking. If it's designed to effect those few who find issues of illegal immigration at the top of their list, it is a surprise that is in the face of a stark and far more shocking reality of an American economy on the verge of a nervous breakdown; that and voters' malaise with what the GOP has done to this country in the last 8 years. What's a foreign aunt to a collective and profound desire for real and positive Change?

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