Will Bunch catches a line by longtime Clinton advisor Harold Ickes:

“We don’t know enough about Senator Obama yet. We don’t need an October Surprise. And (the chance of) an October Surprise with Hillary is remote.”

Notes Bunch:

This remark is dismaying on several levels, partly because Ickes is virtually channeling Karl Rove, who implied something similar in a recent interview with GQ — not backed up by any information of course. Just planting this vague idea in Joe Average Voter’s head that there’s something about Barry — pick your vice, political or personal — that all the kool kidz inside the Beltway know about, and it’s going to pop one week before the election, is the only strategy here. As if the Clinton camp wouldn’t use that information now, when they are still so eager to win but probably can’t do so without a “game changer.”

I mean, that’s probably right. But I don’t necessarily think the “October surprise,” if there is one, is going to revolve around Obama per se.

What I think may happen is that we get an attack on Iran sometime just before the general election. The idea being that the public will rally around the party in power - and its nominee, and propel him to victory in the general election.

Now, if such a thing were possible - and really, with this crowd, do you actually doubt it? - why would they not do a similar thing if Hillary were to be the nominee?

How about, Hillary offers more of a continuum with what’s been happening? How about, Hillary would continue the war, is likely to go ahead with whatever plans are on the table for Iran. She’s already threatened to “obliterate” the country, after all.

There is a faction in this country that doesn’t merely want to attack Iran in the face of some provocation, but wants to attack Iran period. Which thinks a wider war in the Mideast is an absolute imperative if the U.S. is to achieve what it set out to achieve in Iraq, which was only the beginning, and only ever intended to be the beginning.

But the war has not gone as planned and the public has jumped off the bandwagon. I do not think Obama would precipitously yank our troops out of Iraq, but neither do I think he’s in any rush to attack Iran. I might be wrong. But if there were some “October surprise” - either an attack by the U.S. on Iran, or an attack on the U.S. by terrorists “definitively” linked to Iran - then Obama might be caught off guard, while McCain could say, “See? I was right.” And then terrified/patriotic Americans would rally round their He-Man leader, forgetting all about gas prices and the economy. And the great Crusade in the Mideast could continue unabated.

That’s the theory, anyway. But at this stage, five years into the never-ending war, this itself would be a crapshoot. Particularly if it were us taking a swing at Iran, there are going to be a lot of people who will see the increasing need to get the belligerent GOP out of the way as soon as possible and will specifically vote against them, especially because any of this means an immediate spike in those gas prices, and prices everywhere else.

Our uncharted economic territory, in other words, could inflict as much damage upon the purveyors of this type of October surprise as it might the opposition. And in any event, it would be extraordinarily risky, extraordinarily reckless.

Par for the course, in other words.