An Irishman's Diary

It’s still unclear, at time of writing, whether it was decisive. But either way, Hurricane Sandy will go down in history as this US election’s “October Surprise”, rather than anything either side planned. Not that it was for the want of trying.

Attempted ambushes included Donald Trump’s offer of a $5m charity donation if Barack Obama released his college records: the

not-so-tacit implication being that there was something to hide there. Trump blew hard for a few minutes, as is his wont.

But his intervention was quickly downgraded to a topical storm (in a tea-cup) and thereafter ignored.

In the end, there was nothing to compare with the incident from our own presidential campaign a year ago, when an entirely man-made October Surprise did to Seán

Gallagher’s election chances what last week’s hurricane did to the Atlantic City boardwalk.

Twenty-first century technology played a part in Candidate Gallagher’s demise. But of course there’s nothing new in politics. Indeed even the word “candidate” comes from Ancient Rome, where as candidatus, meaning “white-robed”, it referred to the dress code for those seeking election.

The robes served two purposes. Their colour was a guarantee of integrity. But also important was that the garments were loose, so candidates could show off their scars from fighting for Rome (and there, possibly, you have the contrast between Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns in a nutshell).

The idea of besmirching a candidate’s robes, at least metaphorically, is not new either. We know this in part because of the eruption 1,933 years ago of Mount Vesuvius. Which, freezing the city of Pompeii in time, preserved its most recent election posters, including the first century equivalent of attack ads.

They didn’t have Twitter back then. They did, however, have lawyers – the world’s second oldest profession. So outright defamation of your opponent was inadvisable. You had to be creative, as campaigners usually are. And one way of sabotaging somebody was the false endorsement.

Pity poor Marcus Cerrinius Vatia, therefore. A candidate for magistrate in Pompeii’s municipal elections of that year, he probably didn’t welcome news that, according to graffiti, “The late night drinkers all ask you to elect Marcus Cerrinius Vatia”. Nor would have been thrilled to learn that “The petty thieves support Vatia”.

Even so, such messages did appear on the city walls, mimicking the endorsements from more respectable interest groups, including shop-keepers and publicans, who then as now, publicly backed their men.

The legitimate political slogans of Pompeii also confirm there’s nothing new under the sun. They span the traditional spectrum of election promises (“gets good bread” and “gives good games” are among the recommendations for candidates).

And as for Bruttius Balbus, who ran on a “protect the treasury” ticket, he sounds like he might be an ancestor of one of Ireland’s patrician families, the Brutonii, whose devotion to fiscal rectitude once brought down a government and is still represented at Cabinet today.

Thieves and drinkers apart, other public backers you didn’t want in Roman times included prostitutes and runaway slaves. This had a warped echo in the US campaign just ended — and it was not, remarkably, in the area of sex. No. After the Clinton years, prospective US presidential candidates are like stray cats now: they have to be neutered as early as possible.

So, bizarrely, it was slavery that made a brief appearance late in the 2012 campaign, via what purported to be a Romney statement attributing his natural empathy with black people to a family history of slave ownership. The statement was entirely phony and — I think — intended only as a joke. But that didn’t prevent some internet debaters taking it seriously.

The destruction of Pompeii is usually dated to late August, based on a letter by Pliny the Younger, who witnessed it from a safe distance. Yet evidence from the site itself contradicts this. The warm clothes worn by preserved victims, among other clues, suggest the city’s destruction was later in the autumn.

It too may have been an October surprise. Or even a November one. Not that it affected the campaign anyway. Elections were always held in spring and early summer. So it’s unlikely that rumblings from Vesuvius, or the threat of local warming, was a campaign issue.

The late removal of election messages for and against Vatia is yet another example of a 2,000-year-old political phenomenon with which we’re still familiar. But whether the attack ads worked, it’s still too early to say. At time of writing, sadly, the results of Pompeii’s Election 79 remain unknown.