Did Obama Campaign Overplay the "High Tech" Text Card?

Barack Obama's campaign devised another brilliant strategy. The effort that organized a winning formula for caucus contests during the primaries and a massive online fundraising mechanism settled on a theatrical way to announce the number two candidate on the ticket.

The idea: bypass the media and send a text message directly to his supporters.

And boy, did we (the media) bite on the bait, but I think the Obama campaign wound up getting a little greedy.

Please tell me the plan wasn't to release the news that Senator Joe Biden was the selection at 3:00am Saturday.

Obama said he had made the choice on Thursday. He reportedly called the others under consideration (Indiana Senator Evan Bayh for instance) that night.

And we knew Obama planned to appear with his new ally in Springfield, Illinois on Saturday.

So why did he try to stretch the announcement out until Saturday morning? Did he really think there wouldn't be a leak?

I went to bed Friday night at about 10:45pm and made a quick switch to CNN to see if anything had transpired. CNN was reporting Bayh and Virginia Governor Tim Kaine had both been informed it wasn't going to be them. So I switched off the TV knowing it was going to be Biden.

As I slept, my email box got a CNN Alert at 12:53am Saturday that Biden was the choice. Marketwatch sent me the same information from their sources at 1:16am. The Associated Press moved the Obama-Biden ticket story on the wires at 2:03am.

With the news now out, the Obama campaign finally sent the long expected text message at 3:02 in the morning on Saturday.

So unless you had insomnia, were watching the Olympics or were just getting in from a Friday night out on the town, who was the target audience at that point?

Why didn't Obama grab the full attention of the Friday evening news cycle with a late afternoon announcement?

Here are two theories:

1. Friday is usually a day to pass on bad news. Many in the media are focused on the weekend. So are potential news viewers.

2. Perhaps the Obama campaign feared the text announcement wouldn't be enough to maintain the momentum for close to 24 hours before the first dual appearance of the Democratic ticket.

But is delivering the message at 3:00am a good idea?

I give the campaign an A+ for the idea and the buzz it created.

However, since I think they tried to get a little too clever; I'm giving their execution a C.