If bin Laden reemerges, McCain stands to gain
Somewhere, probably in Pakistan's tribal province of Waziristan, Osama bin Laden knows that a US election is going on. The last time this happened, bin Laden injected himself into the campaign at the penultimate moment, releasing a nearly 15-minute videotape just four days before America went to the polls. This year, both campaigns are wondering whether he'll try something again, delivering the "October surprise" that could scramble the electoral equation.
Bin Laden's awareness of American politics was evident in his 2004 videotape, a rant that is far more interesting when decoded as a political document than as a national-security threat.
In it, bin Laden directly taunted George W. Bush, telling voters that "despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened." By implication, bin Laden seemed to be saying that he might back off if Americans elected John F. Kerry - that he, the world's terrorist mastermind, preferred Kerry to Bush.
He even seemed at one point to be aping the American left's prime provocateur, filmmaker Michael Moore, whose "Fahrenheit 9/11" chided Bush for continuing to read "The Pet Goat" to schoolchildren while the World Trade Center burned.
"It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the country would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important," bin Laden sneered, in his best Bond-villain style.
So one immediate interpretation of the video was that bin Laden wanted Kerry to win, and was already dancing on the grave of his mortal enemy, President Bush. But as author Ron Suskind revealed in his book "The One Percent Doctrine," the CIA analysts who tracked bin Laden felt that the Al Qaeda leader wanted the opposite result: Bush's reelection.
The analysts speculated that bin Laden believed that Bush's aggressiveness in Iraq, as well as embarrassments such as the treatment of prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, had devastated America's image on the "Arab Street," sending many young radicals into Al Qaeda's hands.
Whatever bin Laden intended, American voters clearly resented his taunting of their commander in chief, and the video helped rally last-minute support for Bush. Bin Laden's success in influencing American politics in 2004 makes it quite plausible that he would try to do it again - through another video, a direct threat, or, perhaps, some sort of attack in the United States or abroad.
This possibility was on the mind of John McCain's senior adviser, Charlie Black, when he mused to Fortune magazine last June that another attack on American soil would be "a big advantage" for McCain. Black was roundly criticized, but his prediction may not be that far off: McCain could benefit from anything that puts bin Laden back in the news.
At first glance, this seems illogical. Throughout the campaign, McCain has been the person insisting that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism, while Barack Obama has put greater emphasis on catching and/or killing bin Laden. It was Obama who made the risky pledge to go into the Pakistani territory of Waziristan and hunt down bin Laden, whether or not the Pakistani government approves. (McCain hasn't ruled out such a move but criticized Obama for telegraphing his intentions.)
So if bin Laden reasserts himself, a logical assumption might be that Obama, who has targeted the Al Qaeda leader more directly, would benefit.
But it's worth noting that in 2004, Kerry - like Howard Dean before him - also stressed his desire to capture and/or kill bin Laden, and claimed that the Iraq war was distracting from that goal. Bush, in fact, downplayed the threat from bin Laden, claiming that he had already been isolated.
But voters, in times of fear, turn to the more hawkish candidate overall. And in this race, McCain has shown greater faith in the idea that maintaining a strong military force in the Middle East can lead to "victory" in Iraq. Voters have tired of the war in Iraq, and are more willing than ever to see it as a distraction. But for McCain, just like Bush before him, Iraq has been an opportunity to stress his belief in American power and its ability to impose America's will on the world.
American voters are deeply skeptical. But when confronted with a threat, they want to believe that their military can protect them - that bin Laden is fearful of unleashing American rage, and wouldn't want a warrior like McCain in the White House.
Even if the opposite is true.
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond. 