Obama's VP Pick: OMGYG2BK

Barack Obama is breaking new ground.

Marking another first in his historic presidential bid, expected Democratic nominee Barack Obama will be the first presidential candidate to announce his vice president via email and text message, his campaign said Sunday.

“Barack will announce his VP candidate choice through txt msg between now & the Conv. Tell everyone to text VP to 62262 to be the first to know! Please forward,” read the text sent by the campaign Sunday evening.

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, also sent out an email Sunday advising supporters to sign up for the campaign’s email alerts in order to “be the first to know” Obama’s running mate.

As noted by the Los Angeles Times "Top of the Ticket" blog:

This modern tech announcement gimmick, of course, also has the added benefit of presumably getting thousands of people to offer the campaign their e-mail addresses and cellphone numbers, a priceless, free recruiting and fund-raising tool.

When you sign up to receive the VP notification, you are offered another form to help recruit many friends and family to sign up too. NON-PARTISAN WARNING: You will soon also begin receiving regular pleas for money.

(Now, this commercial message: If you would rather receive instant notification of Obama's vice presidential choice via The Ticket -- free -- along with all new blog items 24 hours a day, you can enroll here:

(For existing Twitterers, go to http://twitter.com/latimestot

(Click Follow. Enroll there for alerts on every new Ticket item AND our instant, breaking-news items whenever and wherever anything is happening in the presidential race. And it's all free, of course.

(For about-to-be Twitter folks, think of it as text message headlines to any mobile device. Go here to enroll. Click on Join, not surprisingly. RSS feeds also available here.)

No Ticket donations appeals. We promise.

Gee, I wonder if Obama will txt msg his concession speech, too.