I don't think he's screwed if he raises. I think most peope will understand, except of course Michael Moore, Teddy Kennedy, John Kerry, and the entire Clinton spin maching.
Nonetheless ... they should raise it.
Raising the alert level without more specific information would help AQ more than it would help us.
The feds have been warning for many months about election-related threats, certain areas (NYC, NJ, DC named and others possibly unnamed) were put on selective orange in August, bulletins on specific issues have been going out weekly to something like 25,000 state and local law enforcement agencies and first responders, and the tapes themselves have forced up the general awareness level of the overall population.
AQ (and perhaps an accomplice or two) is trying to insert itself into our election process. They achieve more PR with each additional minute of the tapes aired (more juicy threats and quotes). Therefore, the effort to suppress as much of it as possible. Don't think of it as a First Amendment issue, but an attempt to quarantine an enemy disinformation/deception/destabilization effort (enemy psyops).
Putting us on orange (the rest of the nation not already quietly there either de facto or de jure) buys us only marginal increased security at the cost of handing AQ at least a partial victory (succeeding in altering the national election environment 72 hours out by making the "October Surprise" the sudden elevation of AQ and its issues as the central and final issue in a 50-50 national election.)
The cost does not outweigh the benefit.
If more specific information is generated, then the benefit of rattling the entire nation's cage on the eve of the election by going to orange and setting off a firestorm of debate over which side is politicizing the issue *might* outweigh the cost if the information that can be disseminated is of enough value.
Otherwise, the folks that need to know about the threat already know and don't need to be reminded, and the average John and Jane Doe already have threat fatigue and stopped paying attention to the color codes long ago and have made them a national joke (are we at "Elmo", "Ernie" or "Bert"?) . You would have to disseminate specific information with the elevation to orange (like the info on NYC/NJ/DC financial targets in August with the selective elevation) for it to be to be taken seriously and therefore for it to be effective.
Without that specific information, going to orange will only advance the strategic objectives of al Qaeda while adding little to overall security.