Barack Obama, running for president of the Teen Choice Awards, will announce his VP pick via text messages to supporters who give him their digits. This is, in a word, brilliant, and not because it generates a lot of publicity and gets supporters thinking they're really tight with O. Rather, it's because Obama's campaign will collect tens or hundreds of thousands of cell phone numbers of the people who like him. It's a calculated move; most phone banks are loaded up only with landline numbers gleaned from phone books and public records. With these digits, Obama has the power to reach people on their person. It has the added benefit of reminding Americans they would actually pay for the privilege of voting for someone via text message.

The strategy likely comes as a huge shock to McCain, who is computer-illiterate and did not know phones you can hold in your hand, and leave the house with, can talk to each other.

Sad, but other old people know what's up: Norman Lear is the 86-year-old ex-producer who runs Declare Yourself, the youth-oriented voter-registration program that has spokespeople like America Ferrara to Tyra Banks convincing their fanbases to vote.

The whole Rock the Vote thing has always been reminiscent of Mike Judge's 2006 film Idiocracy (um, electrolytes?). Making the democratic process into some sort of Jonas Brothers concert will def. alienate some older contingents, or at least give them brain freeze, but the text message gimmick is pure profit.

Sometimes the medium isn't the message, and the goal here is not necessarily to prove that Obama is down with cell-phone owning voters. The hundreds of thousands of phone numbers he'll snap up will be invaluable come November. Much like that one night stand, Obama can pester you with texts several times a day. Except his messages will be reminders to vote, not hints that you might be the father.