WAS AEORMAR'S COMING TO BROWNSVILLE A MARTINEZ-TETREAU-LONGORIA PRE-ELECTION OCTOBER SURPRISE?

By Juan Montoya
The cat (or rather the Aeormar announcement) is out of the bag.
For months now, the Mexican airline with direct flights to Mexico City has been in negotiations with the City of Brownsville to schedule flights out of the Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport.
Now, airline sources indicate that the Mexican airline will commence flights sometime in June or July.
According to them, the airline saw the potential to grow their South Texas business to Mexico City after it discovered that many of those flying out of McAllen were listing their address in Brownsville.
A business flier out of McAllen who complained to Aeormar officials in McAllen was told that it will be "midsummer" when scheduled flights will start in Brownsville.
Remember the famous "October Surprise?"
The term came into use shortly after the 1972 presidential election between Republican incumbent Richard Nixon and Democrat George McGovern, when the United States was in the fourth year of negotiations to end the very long and domestically divisive Vietnam War.

On October 26, 1972, twelve days before the election on November 7, the United States' chief negotiator, the presidential National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, appeared at a press conference held at the White House and announced,

"We believe that peace is at hand."

Although Nixon was ahead in the presidential race, the Kissinger assurance of an end to the long and divisive war may have tipped the balance in his favor.

Since that election, the term "October surprise" has been used preemptively during campaign season by partisans of one side to discredit late-campaign news by the other side.
Remember the fanfare when the coming of AeroMexico was announced? The city pulled out all the stops to amaze the peasants with the announcement that it had offered "incentives" to that airline to come to Brownsville? It was just a matter of months later that the incentives ran out and AeroMexico took flight as well.

We wonder, was the Aeromar announcement going to be made before the May 9 election by the incumbents Rick Longoria (District 1), Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa (District 2) and Da Mayor Tony Martinez as their own sort of "October Surprise?"