Publishing a story first is certainly critical in journalism, to the point that stories can be written before an event actually happens. With November just around the corner, newspapers have already started writing their post-election analysis pieces this week. Editorials begin to blend prediction with retrospection: the breaking news is not who will win, but why one candidate has the White House locked down.

October 22, 1872: The Maverick

An editorial in the New York Times reflects upon what is perhaps the boldest political move in US history. The ailing, post-Civil War Democratic party, lacking a strong candidate of its own to fight Ulysses S. Grant, went out of its own ranks to nominate a liberal, abolitionist, Republican reformer named Horace Greeley for president. The article presents a Democratic Party fraught with dissent, with neo-secessionists butting heads with early progressives. Greeley's nomination is presented as a triumph of the latter party: a message that the Democrats should accept Reconstruction one and for all, then attack its implementation on grounds of corruption: "if it is right, as even the Cincinnati platform substantially admits, let us stand by it and keep it in the charge of its tried friends till it is perfected forever.” Greeley later died before the electoral college voted that November; despite this, Georgian delegates were said to have given him three electoral votes.

October 19, 1972: The Plumbers

As the federal investigation into the Watergate incident intensified, it became clear that the dust would not clear after the upcoming presidential election. Peter Osnos of the Washington Post suggests that the conspiracy's roots will be found at the very top of the administration, and that the disastrous scandal will cripple the White House's national image. Leading Republican John Mitchell is quoted dismissing the charges: "[the burglary was] all the kind of thing that overzealous, bright young men do sometimes in a silly way in a campaign." Osnos proposes the opposite position: “Acts of political espionage and sabotage, according to the investigators, represented a basic strategy of President Nixon’s re-election effort.” These implications, however, apparently failed to affect the president's popularity: in November, Nixon reclaimed the White House against George McGovern by a massive margin.

October 20, 1902: A Tale of Two Presidents

October is usually defined in relation to the November election, but the dropping temperatures can also have political implications. In 1902, the United Mine Workers organized a strike against coal corporations for more favorable pay and hours. As winter approached, the strike threatened to leave American homes without heating; to attempt to prevent this debacle, President Theodore Roosevelt sent representatives to the president of the UMW to negotiate a settlement to end the strike. W.A. Croffut of the Washington Post predicts an unpopular resolution, which will kindle the fires for a fresh strike next year, lasting into Roosevelt's reelection season: “during the Presidential election of 1904 this country will be in the clutch of the worst mining strike it has ever known, involving the railroads and telegraphs to such an extent that travel will be perilous and almost impossible”.

The strike ended three days later, and, true to Croffut's prediction, the UMW was leading fresh strikes in Colorado the following year. In May of 1904, however, the National Guard and agents of the Pinkerton Agency successfully suppressed the strikers six months before the election. In November of 1904, the victorious Roosevelt was reelected by a wide margin.