Someone should be fired. Seriously. The Obama campaign has been gifted with all this media attention over the past week about his pick. It’s talked about everywhere. And for the first time in history, people are waiting on text messages to get the announcement. We’re hovering over our phones, waiting for that nectar of press release.

So, the natural thing to do?

Send the damn thing while most of America is sleeping! Of course: send it at 3:47AM (by my phone’s time) so people either miss it and feel left out of the glee of hearing the news, or wake up and get pissed they weren’t part of the shared experience. In my case it’s both. I woke up when it came in, and ignored the message. It’s not like my life depended on this or anything, but I’m just amazed at how stupid its timing was, given the opportunity. They don’t get to capitalize on the online posting rush. Instead, I’m sitting here typing how badly they screwed up.

I follow an NBC News Cameraman, Jim Long, on twitter. He’s been camped out at Biden’s house for three days now waiting for an announcement. It’s been amusing to see his updates about the boredom of speculatory journalism. Even he wrote this morning: “back at Biden’s. txt came in while i was asleep!”

A friend pointed out some current speculation that the Obama camp was thinking of holding off on the announcement until next week since they felt they already had a really good thing going with the McCain “Number of Houses” gaffe (which is totally, illegitimate, IMO, and should be dropped immediately). The concern was that they were going to get such good press and attention out of this VP announcement that they would be crowding too many good things together. I never, for a second, thought they would have actually moved the announcement, but it does highlight the attitude that this VP announcement is viewed as a huge opportunity for a bump in the polls. So, why waste the opportunity to send the text message at a rational time.

Ah, the silly things we didn’t have to worry about in the last election.