The promised Text Message from Barack, which was purported to be a way of having supporters be “the first to know” who he was “introducing to the world” as the campaign’s VP pick (funny, I’d heard of Joe Biden before this — several times, in fact, like when he said Obama was a dangerous candidate for POTUS because he’d need “on the job training,” when he observed that 7/11s always seem to be run by Indians, and when he called his new boss a “clean, articulate” black man), arrived at 2:22am CDT.

With the Friday night reporting being done by ABC’s Jake Tapper, the RedState crew, and others, those who waited for that text message were among the last to find out who the Veep pick was, running ahead only of (a) those who locked themselves in their bomb shelters or panic rooms, avoiding all television and internet contact with the outside world until the precious text message from Barack could arrive, and (b) Helen Keller (though Annie Sullivan may have let her in on the secret before the die-hard Obamanites ever found out).

As Ben pointed out below, “All he’s done now is piss off the morning papers by making them miss their deadline, and given the networks a scramble for Saturday morning. How very throwback to think you could avoid the internet attention.”

Indeed, for a campaign that was built upon a foundation of online outreach and internet communication, the decision-makers within the Obama camp seem to have forgotten all about the potency the internet possesses as a grassfire communications tool. Whoops.

Then again, the manner in which the entire conduct of this Vice Presidential buildup and announcement was handled was shoddy at best. As Erick pointed out yesterday, the delays and game-playing really made it seem as though Obama really didn’t want a VP at all.

I don’t know that I can blame him; after all, he’s had the stage — and the adoring German crowds — all to himself for months, and now he has to share that spotlight with somebody who, it will be assumed, has been chosen because he brings to the ticket those things which Barack himself cannot — like “gravitas,” adulthood, and even the tiniest bit of experience actually dealing in the policy realm with the world outside America’s borders.

As far as the text messaging fiasco goes, what ObamaCo really wanted out of this entire gambit was the personal — the most personal possible, in fact — contact information of millions more people, which they got. The suckers who signed up for it thinking that the campaign was actually telling the truth about making sure they were the “first to know” about Obama’s VP pick?

They came out of this ordeal as the big losers — but that’s no surprise to anybody already familiar with them.

Update: While Obama’s die-hards were locked in their storm cellars staring longingly at their cell phones, Team McCain was paying attention to events, and cutting the first of what should be an incalculable number of effective Obama-Joe Biden ads.

Video below the fold.