What is Donald Trump's 'big surprise' for the Republican convention? 3 theories

Anticipation is building ahead of the Republican National Convention, which kicks off Aug. 27 in Tampa, and billionaire showman Donald Trump is getting in on the act. Trump, who last year briefly considered making his own bid for the presidency, tweeted on Tuesday that he was working on a "big surprise" for the convention. "Everyone will love it," he said. What is Trump cooking up? Here, three (admittedly cynical) theories:

1. He'll deliver his most memorable catchphrase: Trump's not the guy Romney's going to rely on to deliver messages on policy, says Peter Grier at The Christian Science Monitor. The "strangely coiffed" New York tycoon isn't really a politician. These days, he's not even best known for his casino and real estate businesses, but for his Celebrity Apprentice reality TV show. "Here's wagering" that Trump's surprise will be "striding on stage in front of a full crowd of cheering Republicans, and shouting one line: 'Barack Obama, you're fired!' It'll blow the roof off the arena."

2. Maybe this is when we he drops his birther bombshell

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Some "idiotic video where Trump 'fires' an Obama impersonator" does seem like a safe bet, agrees Alex Pareene at Salon. But what if this is the big moment when Trump tries to prove his "insane and racist conspiracy theories"? "Trump believes, and frequently says, on television, that the president was secretly born in Kenya and that his birth certificate is a fraud." Last week he even said, again via Twitter, that a "very credible source" has confirmed to him that Obama's birth certificate is phony.

3. The only surprise will be that his latest cry for attention will work

Trump's Twitter tease was, predictably, "catnip for poli bloggers," says Patrick Coffee at Mediabistro, and that was the idea. Trump's raison d'etre seems to be getting his name into headlines, so it's a reasonable assumption that his big "announcement" is just "more of the usual smoke and mirrors." The surprise, if you can call it that, will be that people will actually fall for his shenanigans.

Read more political coverage at The Week's 2012 Election Center.