Secrets can’t stay secret in politics
Only 24 hours after Barack Obama announced that Senator Joseph Biden runs as Vice-Presidential Candidate, the Obama Campaign put out an email asking supporters to buy the First Edition of the Obama-Biden-Car-Margnet (I wonder if that would work in Germany as well, the Beck-Steinmeier-Car-Magnet or the Merkel-Koch-Support-Button.)
What the announcement has shown: it’s hard to keep secrets. Obama has been pondering this choice for quite some time, even saying that it will be the most important choice of his presidential campaign.
Only a few people were involved in the decision-making: his wife Michelle Obama and probably his Campaign Manager David Plouffe. They probably also briefed all possible candidates to not say a word to the media on this but simply to test their discipline.
Earlier this week, Obama made his choice. The Obama Campaign said it will announce the decision through SMS and Emails to his supporters first. Yet when the Campaign called other possible candidates to tell them they were not picked, the word leaked out very quickly.
When they finally called Joe Biden, probably sometime on Friday afternoon, the secret could not be kept behind closed doors. Someone, either relatives or friends or staff of Biden, must have notified CNN which were then ready to announce the news really quick.
The Obama Campaign then tried to send around an SMS at 3am on Saturday morning, and they sent an email on Saturday afternoon. In my opinion, this shows some lack of planning. They should have called Biden, ask for his confirmation that he wants to run, and had the SMS-Message and the Emails ready to be sent as soon as Bidens response comes in.
This whole incident shows that it’s very hard to keep secrets once more than three or four people are involved. So to all you conspiracy theorist who think that the Americans did not land on the moon or that George Bush plotted 9/11, you should first prove why such a secret remained a secret.
