Sometime between now and the convention, Barack Obama, just like the cool kid in study hall, will surreptitiously send a text message announcing his pick for vice president. The ploy may seem silly -- the fad candidate adopts the latest tech fad -- but it's an important part of one of Obama's most under-recognized campaign efforts.
The Web has certainly made it harder to roll out a surprise running mate. Four years ago, even as The New York Post reported incorrectly that **** Gephardt would be John Kerry's 2004 vice presidential pick, a message-board commenter on an aviation Web site broke the news that Kerry had actually chosen John Edwards. (In a hangar, the commenter had spotted decals with Edwards' name being added to Kerry's campaign plane.)
But announcing Obama's running mate by text message has little to do with proclaiming the selection and everything to do with getting out the vote on Election Day in November. The move should add thousands -- and more likely tens or hundreds of thousands -- of cell phone numbers to what is already one of the most detailed political databases ever created.
A study conducted during the 2006 elections showed that text-message reminders helped increase turnout among new voters by four percentage points, at a cost of only $1.56 per vote -- much cheaper than the $20 or $30 per vote that the offline work of door-to-door canvassing or phone banking costs.
For Obama, who is building his campaign around bringing in new young voters and registering minority voters, there's no more effective outreach than a text message. Cell phones, which legally can't be called by pollsters and can't be reached by campaign "robo-calls," are the most intimate form of communication technology today. Young voters of every race are more likely to use their cell phones...

More...