Obama text message promise proves unworkable

Sen. Barack Obama's promise to supporters that they would be the first to know of his vice presidential running mate via text messaging turned out to be a bit of an ambitious promise. The Democratic presidential candidate got scooped by the media on his own announcement.

Late Friday the national networks started naming Sen. Joseph Biden as Obama's pick but the Obama campaign didn't dispatch the text message to Obama supporters until 3 a.m. EST Saturday. Some received the message right away, but some messages were delayed for a few hours. Neither Obama's camp nor Distributive Networks, the Washington, D.C.-based firm that facilitated the text campaign, will reveal how many text messages were sent to supporters notifying them of the Democratic candidate's VP choice. 

Obama's plan to use text messaging to announce his choice was a first in politics. He had promised supporters that by providing cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses they would be the first to hear the news of his choice for vice president.

For more:
See this Associated Press story

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