Charlie_Brennan's Blog

So, I don’t know about you. But this is how I learned that Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware had been selected as Barack Obama’s running mate.

 

I walked out my front door before sunrise, picked the newspaper up off my driveway, slipped of the plastic wrap and there was the headline – “Biden Tapped To Be Obama’s Running Mate.” Story from the Associated Press.

 

How old school can you get? This is just how people used to learn things in 1980, when I entered this business.

 

Parenthetically, I was amused to see the form the A.P.’s story’s attribution took. The information was credited to a campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he “did not want to pre-empt” the text message notification system that had been put in place for this hotly anticipated news bulletin – which, of course, said official was thereby totally pre-empting.

 

I walked back in the house, then picked up my cell phone, and there was the much touted, long-promised text message – perhaps you got one too, “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee….” And so on.

 

Notice the “Barack has chosen…”? Not Sen. Barack Obama. Not, even, Barack Obama. Just “Barack.” Your buddy, Barack.

 

Also interesting was the time it was sent: 1:52 a.m. M.S.T.

 

Now, the whole gimmick with the Obama campaign notifying regular folks, the rank and file supporters, first, courtesy of the text message was a novel touch. But, really. I don’t know a journalist covering this campaign who had not also signed up for notification. So, obviously, as the Obama campaign was tipping off the grass-roots loyalists, they were also simultaneously notifying every journalist, pundit, talking head and blogger who has been staying gainfully employed covering a campaign that has already lasted much longer than numerous wars.

 

But back to this 1:52 a.m. notification. Exactly how much use is a text message one receives at 1:52 a.m.? There was a time, and there was a place, way in my rear-view mirror, when I might have been in position to receive a message of some kind at 1:52 a.m. But, that time – and I don’t regret this – is past. I was doing what most people are doing at 1:52 a.m., and that doesn’t include reading text messages, or much of anything else. I was sound asleep.

 

So, it’s nice to know “Barack” – just, good-ole’ Barack, as he is known to me – was thinking about me at 1:52 a.m. But I wasn’t thinking about him, Joe Biden, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Fred Thompson, Dennis Kucinich, Rielle Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Mike Gravel, or any of the other personalities we’ve all had to bone up on since the 2006 mid-term election. I was asleep.

 

A 1:52 a.m. notification, I imagine, is better than none at all. It’s the first time a presidential nominee has thought of me at that time of night. It’s also the first presidential election for which I’ve had the capacity to send or receive text messages. And that’s really the point.

 

As pointed out in my previous entry, this whole effort on the part of “Barack” was aimed not at giving you, the voter, the information ahead of the evil Mainstream Media. It was an effort to get your data, your cell-phone number in this case, into their data base, for future use.

 

Now that they have it, expect to hear from them, again and again. It might or might not be at 1:52 a.m.

 

But, at least if it is, it shouldn’t wake you up.