If there's an October Surprise...

...it will most certainly be Mitt's.

No way there's an October Surprise for Barack. He may very well be the most investigated man in history.

I base that conclusion on the sheer power and range of today's investigative tools wielded by the mostly right-wing zealots with a hard-on for Barack Obama. If there were any damaging secrets in Barack's past, we would know them already. City and country blocks around each location Barack has ever been have been excavated and sifted through by miners with the black-hearted souls of Dickensian villains and the eternal optimism of the '49ers.

One thing about which all Americans ought to be sure is this: Barack Obama is exactly who he appears to be--an ambitious, thoughtful family man with an abiding love for his wife and children and a desire to do right in the world.

In rather surprisingly stark contrast, Mitt Romney is the most opaque and guarded man to have run for president in my memory, which does run as far back as Ike and Adlai, both of whom, by the way, projected authenticity, itself a separate deficit plaguing Mitt. Together the lack of transparency and the lack of authenticity suggests that Mitt has secrets, some of which might be significant enough to assume "October Surprise" proportions.

Of course, for all I know, Mormonism and its sincere practice might somehow shore Mitt up in a way that makes his deficiencies less problematic. But I doubt it. We just might not ever know.

In any case, we do know this. Barack is a straight up, honest guy. Such secrets as he might have will be very much like the rest of us. Bad, embarrassing, pathetic, whatever, but the secrets of a man who might very well be an exemplar of honest. Rather like a previous president from Illinois.

Which all brings me to consideration of the Chicago Way a term currently being pounded by hard right columnists and bloggers, like Victor Hansen; a concept likely to be the jumping off point for my next post.