Obama, I'm Bored

Weeks ago the thought of whom Obama would choose to be his running mate made my mind race over the possibilities and the possible strategies behind certain choices. My favorite, Gov. Richardson, hasn't been spoken of much at all recently, which I think may be a good thing.

But the excitement over who will be Obama's "veep" faded more than a few weeks ago. It's not really Obama's fault. It's mostly the result of the news day after day giving "hints" from "people close to the candidate" or "from people close to the campaign"... general rumormongering.

Wait. Now that I think about it, I signed up for the email notification the campaign made such a big deal about thinking, 'well if he's asking for your email info again and makes this big deal about it, then the announcement should be forthcoming in a reasonable amount of time...oh say like 3-7 days. You know, the amount of time it would take to send a letter snail mail. Also, it seems that the delay ruins the whole metaphor behind this unique, and innovative way to get an announcement out by creating this new ritual of sending text messages and emails to supporters.

The campaign could have gone the traditional route of physically getting on a podium and saying it in a speech. They could have chosen to fax press releases to the news agencies to get the word out surrounding the announcement, but they chose email and text. It's faster. It's easier. It bypasses the commercial press, kinda (since it's probably made the press more frenzied to "scoop" the general public). This new ritual screams phrases in my head like 'moving forward' and 'not afraid of change'. But what the campaign forgot is that in this day and age when you tell someone you're going to text or email them, and it takes a really long time (longer than if you'd use the old ways Obama chose not to go with) the metaphor falls flat. One's mind starts thinking, 'he might as well have snail mailed me a spiffy letter thanking because that's how long it took him to use the new technology' to deliver a very historically old announcement. I'm sure there are some strategic reasons for the timing of the announcement, or intervening events that may have caused the campaign to change the timing of the announcement. It just makes me think that when the message is actually sent, that I'll feel like one does when a fancy cake you've been baking is finally done, you take it out the oven and leave it to cool, and come back to see it fell. It's still excellent to eat and all, but it's just fallen flat. It's not like the sky is falling, but it's a bit of a drag and disappointment.