On Tuesday, June 19th, Rep. Mike Jacobs of north Dekalb County switched from Democrat to Republican. Some noted the strangeness of the timing. Rumors had floated for months that Jacobs would jump party lines and he would not face re-election for over a year. So why announce on the same day the Democratic Party Of Georgia faced a severe test in the 10th District Special Election?
I asked Representative Jacobs that very question and he responded:
I had resolved to make a final decision and announcement by the end of June. A press conference was scheduled for June 27, but someone leaked it to the media on June 18. Rather than fostering a “will he or won’t he” guessing game for a week and a half, I went ahead and announced my decision the next day, on June 19. That’s life in the information age.
Stay tuned for more on the continuing Mike Jacobs saga.
5 comments:
OK, here's the problem I have with Mike's response: he could not possibly have actually believed that by sending a press release to a whole bunch of people on 6/18 announcing a secret press conference on 6/27 that the news wouldn't leak out almost immediately. If he'd really wanted to announce on 6/27 and keep it secret until then, all he had to do was not send his press release until the day before the announcement. So I'm not sure that I buy his whole "the press forced me to do it early" explanation.
If he said in the relase "strictly embargoed until XXX" as opposed to immediate release, it was leaked.
saying its embargoed is pretty standard so editors and writers can build a good story (like this).
He said "strictly confidential" but not embargoed. Here's the text from the Political Insider posting that leaked it to the world.
Go fish, Mike.
Thinking that fall of 2006 would have been more appropriate.
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