When a friend asked me last weekend who I expected to win the upcoming presidential election, I almost caught myself by surprise when the words "coin flip" came out of my mouth. My instinctive answer was a bit puzzling because I don't expect the vote to be close -- I'd lay money on a margin of more than five percent for the winner. The real question is whether it will be Bush or Kerry on the happy side of that margin, and the more I think about it the more sure I am that I don't know the answer.
That's not a cop-out, either. The reason that this race is so unpredictable is that I can think of at least five major events that might happen at any time and that would throw any tentative predictions out the window. Taken individually, the likelihood of any given wild card coming off the top of the deck seems pretty slim, but taken together the chance that at least one joker might pop-up and upend the election seems possible -- if not probable -- enough that it might be wise to expect the unexpected.
So what exactly are these possible tipping points? While this list is hardly exclusive, five big ones immediately jump to mind:
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The United States captures or kills Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is the face of terrorism for the American public, and his capture would be such a huge psychological win for the current administration that November would become a slam-dunk for Bush -- and a pass-to-self-off-the-backboard-and-finish-with-a-reverse-360-slam-dunk at that. John Kerry can't be sleeping easily, knowing that any given morning he might flip on CNN and see Osama in handcuffs. The Kerry camp can argue that they would have caught Osama faster or that bin Laden's capture will do little to stop terrorism -- and the second point may be a legitimate one -- but those arguments are horribly outmatched by the symbolic victory that Bush would claim. If Osama falls into America's hands, John Kerry may as well pick up his marbles and go home.
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A major terrorist attack hits the United States. A horrible reality of the world we now live in is that tomorrow a fanatic with C4 strapped to his chest might blow himself up on a passenger train, or an explosives-filled truck might take out part of the Chrysler Building or a dirty bomb might spread radiation around downtown Chicago or the list goes on. If a major terrorist attack strikes America, I think Bush benefits greatly from the public's reflexive need to rally around the president. Kerry can argue that Bush's policies enabled another attack, but I think that line of argument requires too much dot-connecting and too many what-ifs to overcome the visceral desire for unity and revenge that we saw after Sept. 11.
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A major terrorist attack hits the Middle East. If the terrorism occurs in Iraq or Saudi Arabia rather than the American homeland, I think the advantage swings to Kerry. If, for example, Iraq's interim government was destroyed by a major attack or U.S. companies were forced by ceaseless kidnappings to evacuate employees from the region, Kerry's claims that Bush's Middle East policy has destabilized the region and created new hotbeds for terrorism ring truer, and the Democrats would neutralize an issue that Bush needs to win.
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Iran goes nuclear. Any other large-scale nuclear proliferation would suffice, but I think the Iranian scenario -- whether Tehran builds its own bomb or buys one from North Korea -- seems to be the most likely version. This could be a major win for Kerry, allowing him to state emphatically that Bush missed the real threat to America. Bush's now-dubious claim that Iraq was the locus of the WMD threat would also become even more costly.
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The economy takes a major swing. On the one hand, a major stock market rebound or greatly accelerated job growth would give Bush a hold on the nation's wallets, and I'm convinced that more people will vote those wallets than the prevailing wisdom seems to expect. Another major corporate scandal or a market crash would leave Bush staring down twin barrels of economic and international instability.
Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe the election will plod along its routine course, filled with snooze-inducing debates and unmemorable 30-second spots. But there are an unusually large numbers of wrenches that might fall into the works, at which point all bets are off.
