Sen. Barack Obama's pledge to supporters they would be the "first to know" his running mate turned out to be a brilliant but flawed communications strategy.
New media, old news
August 24, 2008 at 3:26AM
The Democratic presidential candidate whipped up fierce anticipation but got scooped by news outlets on his own announcement, done in by dogged reporting, loose-lipped party insiders and the limits of technology.
The text message announcing Sen. Joseph Biden as Obama's pick began filtering across the U.S. at 2:02 a.m. CDT Saturday, when most people were asleep. By then, it was old news, by today's standards, coming more than two hours after the first news reports of the pick.
But all was not lost. Obama amassed a huge database of cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses for the fall campaign. It won't say how many people signed up to receive the text message, but the small Washington, D.C., company that handled the imposing chore said it's impressive.
Once the Obama campaign composed and sent the message, it was largely an automated process. The instant the campaign pushed the button, the message text flashed on the laptop of Kevin Bertram, 37, founder and CEO of Distributive Networks. He said he was "nervous, confident, relieved and sleepy all at once" as he watched the text message move through the system, which took about 15 minutes.
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While the focus was on Vice President Kamala Harris in their first media interview of the presidential campaign, Walz was asked if voters could take him at his word.
