Surprise! It's almost October!

Chuck Todd is one of the better analysts on tv, sober, level-headed, generally fair and astute. His segment on Countdown tonight was must-see and one point stood out for me: Todd confidently declared that, "Because there's so much early voting in this country, where this race is on October 15th is where this race is gonna be."

That's a scary thought.

Even scarier is trying to guess what the proverbial October Surprise will be. Will it be another Osama tape (real or faked) with heightened terror threat index-matrix-thingamajig? Will it be an incident that becomes a casus belli for Cheney to launch an air war on Iran? Or, as some believe, will there be a new detente with Iran? Let a thousand Republican flowers bloom.

Will it be Osama pulled like a rabbit out of his cave and into Guantanamo? There's been a lot of cross-border action up there in northeast Afghanistan lately. Is it a last-ditch attempt to give the Republican ticket some kind of trophy to crow about? It's impossible to believe that there won't be some incident or stunning development designed to be a game-changer (or an insurance policy).

One thing is sure: Whatever manufactured incident develops, the media will instantly tell us how it hurts Obama and helps McCain.

If the Obama campaign hasn't already developed strong responses for every conceivable scenario, they'd better get to it.