If it's October, it must be time for a surprise!

October is the traditional month that the Democrat party, and famously the California Democrat party, drop a load of manure on opposing candidates just before election day with the help of their comrades in the press. You may well remember Lawrence Walsh's bogus indictment of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger just before the 1992 presidential election or the big "revelation" of President Bush's DUI before the 2000 election. However, you have likely forgotten some of the California goodies like Barbara Boxer's opponent in 1992 visiting a "strip club" with his wife; her opponent in 1998 supporting an "ultra conservative" group; or Diane Feinstein's 1994 opponent Michael Huffington (Zsa Zsa's ex) having an illegal alien nanny. No, the "illegal alien nanny" wasn't Zsa Zsa.

Anyhow, the term for this ploy is "October surprise". And serendipitously, the California recall election is October 7 so the California Democrats can have an October surprise this year without even changing the name! Those in the know, like Mickey Kaus, had been forecasting its arrival, so it was no shock when Gray Davis' buttboys at the LA Times showed up this week with the Arnold groping story.

But a funny thing happened as Bill Bradley reports in the LA Weekly - Connecting the Dots: The long tentacles of the get-Arnold campaign:

The L.A. Times dumped its long-anticipated negative research story on the gubernatorial front-runner on Thursday morning. Three reporters, including a Pulitzer Prize winner, labored the better part of two months and came up with a less salacious sequel to a notorious Premiere magazine story of 2001. It was all about Arnold, as you don’t want to know him, talking crudely to women, unwantedly touching women. Six women, over a course of 30 years, four of them anonymous. It was less than anticipated given the buildup, but troubling.

And, by coincidence, of course, it was a bad start for Schwarzenegger at the very moment he launches his big statewide bus tour of California.

So Schwarzenegger, at the kickoff rally in San Diego at the early hour of 9 a.m., does the unexpected. He apologizes.

The assembled traveling press corps of 200 is surprised. If he is not going to be defensive, it is hard to see where the story goes.

Well, that does ruin the party!

So here is where coincidence cascades on coincidence. With the Times story failing to destroy Schwarzenegger, the Democrats hold a press conference call to re-ignite things, protesters who say they are organized by HERE come down from L.A. to Costa Mesa, and a woman who says she is a HERE member surfaces to say she, too, was a victim 25 years ago of Schwarzenegger’s crude behavior.

HERE is run in L.A. by Maria Durazo, who is married to L.A. Labor Fed chief Miguel Contreras, who serves on the executive committee of Gray Davis’ anti-recall campaign.

Remarkable coincidences abound in politics. It is that time of the campaign.

But wait there's more!

How does the press respond, you ask? With some befuddlement. The charge is wild and hard to evaluate. And few know of the coincidental link to Davis. CNN won’t air it. Friday’s newspapers will be interesting, but the attack seems likely to fall short.

Look for more such coincidences on what may be the last Friday of Gray’s last campaign.

Bradley is prescient - there is now a new story that Arnold is a Nazi being retailed by Gray's flying monkeys as Kaus reports. But proving that what is goosestep for the gander is also good for the silly goose, Tom Roberts over at Winds of Change.NET dug up a tale of Gray Davis repeatedly abusing his staff. Sheesh, that must be like being threatened by the White Rabbbit!