fbi director james comey dropped a bombshell onto the home stretch of the 2016 presidential race friday, and it<u+2019>s hard to know exactly what impact it will have on the race. on the other hand, it<u+2019>s relatively easy to predict what the effect will be on how washington works after the election. and it won<u+2019>t be good. the bombshell, of course, was mr. comey<u+2019>s disclosure to congress that he is examining a new set of emails related to hillary clinton. the emails, numbering perhaps 650,000, were found on a laptop used by former democratic rep. anthony weiner and his estranged wife, top clinton aide huma abedin, and the disclosure revived a line of inquiry previously thought to have been closed with minimal damage to mrs. clinton. that constitutes an october surprise of the first order . a canvass of wise political operatives in both parties shows a high level of uncertainty about the effect it will have on a race that had seemed fully baked and ready for removal from the oven. capital journal is wsj.com<u+2019>s home for election 2016 news. certainly it isn<u+2019>t good for mrs. clinton. the biggest impact may simply be that it shifts the attention of voters away from mr. trump and the question of his suitability for office, which was a good focus for democrats, and instead onto mrs. clinton in the campaign<u+2019>s final week. as chicago mayor and clinton supporter rahm emanuel puts it: <u+201c>it was always about trump. now it<u+2019>s about her.<u+201d> that may allow mr. trump to reclaim his hold on some voters who had drifted away from him, thereby raising his vote. but that probably won<u+2019>t <u+201c>meaningfully affect<u+201d> the level of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s vote, says former barack obama campaign manager david plouffe. in other words, it could tick the trump vote up without ticking the clinton vote down. in a campaign in which a historic number of voters is disgusted at both candidates, the disclosure may just increase the number of what analysts in both parties have come to refer to as <u+201c>nose holders<u+201d>: people who will hold their nose and vote, if they vote at all. <u+201c>this election has had a historic number of nose holders,<u+201d> says scott reed, a republican operative who ran bob dole <u+2019>s 1996 presidential campaign. mr. comey<u+2019>s move <u+201c>has the ability to dampen turnout even more.<u+201d> on the other hand, most voters seem long ago to have locked in on their views of the two candidates, and those views are hard to change this late in the game. <u+201c>i doubt it will have much effect, and even if it has some, it won<u+2019>t be enough to change the outcome of the presidential race,<u+201d> says democratic pollster mark mellman. <u+201c>clinton email stories are hardly new. most everyone has already formed an opinion about the matter.<u+201d> republican analyst kevin madden, a top aide on mitt romney <u+2019>s 2012 presidential campaign, says mrs. clinton had benefited from turning the race into a referendum on mr. trump and his temperament, and that effect now is reduced. <u+201c>so, clinton<u+2019>s lead has expanded and contracted based on developments like this,<u+201d> he says. <u+201c>but the thing is, it has always been a lead.<u+201d> david axelrod, a top strategist for mr. obama<u+2019>s presidential campaigns, says it<u+2019>s probably too late for such an event to prove decisive. he adds, though: <u+201c>but the truth is, no one knows the true impact, and we probably won<u+2019>t until we can look at polls and early vote data at the middle of the week.<u+201d> view interactive if anything, it<u+2019>s easier to gauge the impact of this development on the atmosphere in washington after the election. it<u+2019>s bound to make what already figured to be a nasty environment even worse. let<u+2019>s assume the comey bombshell produces some dramatic change in the race and opens the way to a trump victory. democrats, not mr. trump, will be the ones charging the system was rigged and the election stolen, in this case by mr. comey, a longtime republican who was the no. 2 official at the justice department under president george w. bush. i n that case, the corrosive idea that american elections aren<u+2019>t conducted on the up and up may be advanced from the democratic side, and some will say that undermines the legitimacy of a trump presidency. on the other hand, if the development is insufficient to derail what appeared to be a clinton march toward victory, republicans, who figure to retain their power base in the house, already have served notice that they will launch from there a series of investigations into the newly disclosed trove of clinton emails and why they weren<u+2019>t discovered previously. in that case, the acrimony of an angry campaign will carry into a new administration and a new congress. that isn<u+2019>t an inspiring picture either. perhaps the real bottom line is this: an already ugly election may have become even less likely to produce an uplifting outcome. write to gerald f. seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
fbi<u+2019>s hillary clinton email bombshell will be felt after, not just before, election  - wsj
gerald f. seib