When I woke up Saturday morning, I found a text message waiting on my iPhone from the Barack Obama campaign, informing me that the candidate named Joe Biden as running mate. But I already knew that, because I'd already gotten the news the night before -- from newspapers. Old-fashioned journalism -- wordslingers working contacts inside the Obama campaign -- leaked the story in advance of your new-fangled text messaging. Score one for the old school.The Obama campaign had planned to get the news out to supporters via text messaging before it was reported through other channels. So, in that respect, the text-messaging project was a failure. But it succeeded in another way, according to John Dunbar, writing for the Associated Press: The campaign collected huge numbers of e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers, which it can use to drum up support between now and Election Day.

Ken Thomas, also at the AP, has more, writing about how Obama's text-messaging efforts are part of a larger trend of politicians using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 tools to reach out directly to constituents:

The Obama campaign sent text messages to voters on the days of key primary contests, and encourages supporters to attend local events and tune in to TV appearances. Text messages are powerful -- recipients can forward them to their friends, said David All, a Republican strategist: "It's going to be read by every single person -- have you ever not read a text message?"

But politicians walk a tightrope using text messaging to reach out to voters. Texting is a very intimate medium, and supporters might look at text overload as spam. I doubt anybody's going to change their vote over text messaging -- but text overload might make a voter less likely to want to go out and work for their chosen candidate's campaign.