#GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Diane Ellis, Ed. ·
Oct 24, 2011 at 12:38pm
Reports the New York Times:
House Republican members have more than twice as many followers as their Democratic counterparts — about 1.3 million versus roughly 600,000 — and are far more active on Twitter with more than 157,000 individual Twitter messages, versus roughly 62,000 for Democrats.
“Once Republicans get their act together, they are really good at organizing,” said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Media, which studies how technology is changing politics. Republicans in the House are using technology “in order to blunt the power of the White House in a new political media ecology that benefits from speed,” he said.
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Dec '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
The tribulations of Anthony Weiner caused the Democrats in Congress to stop sending sex-tweets, so of course their Twitter activity slowed to a crawl.
Mar '11
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
If twitter is going to be our metric for electoral success then the Democrats’ reelection strategy is obvious. As President Obama and Lady Gaga top in twitter at 10 million and 14 million followers a piece, they swap out Joe “Hair Plugs” Biden who does nothing for the team at a rather sad 1000 followers, then pop in the big G, reverse the ticket and it is full steam ahead for that new and improved high-speed rail team back to the Whitehouse.
May '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Well, conservatives are, certainly. I don't follow many politicians. Their tweets tend to be bland and inoffensive, and who wants to read that? Only got two (Thaddeus McCotter and Herman Cain), who are more entertaining.
But every exciting new Twitter project the White House has launched lately has gone horribly awry. Swamped with conservatives (Attaaaaack Waaaatch!). Andy Levy's legendary clashes are picked up by news organizations. The administration spokestwerp has been thwarted by our own Kevin Eder (documented by this handsome lad here). The #Occupy hashtags are dominated by conservatives, as is #tlot, originally intended to be "Top Liberals on Twitter".
We're subversive, we are. But, like the Tea Party, it has nothing to do with organization. Just a pack instinct and sense of elan and espieglerie. Good-natured competition for the wittiest take-downs of libs.
PS, @TheKennedySmith. Be warned, I do NOT observe the Code of Conduct on Twitter.
Edited on Oct 24, 2011 at 1:24pmMay '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Conservatives use their smartphones to read tweets by Keder, Darrell Issa, Drudge, Exjon, and Kesgardner. Liberals follow Lady Gaga, hiphop morons, and assorted sports idiots.
WeWin.
May '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Whatever the political orientation of the founders of Twitter (not to stereotype everyone except John Yoo in SF as being VERY liberal or leftist), I think social media, and Twitter in particular, has more of a natural appeal to conservatives than liberals/lefties. Why? Because these media work against a concentration of political power and communication.
TWINKLES UP....
Edited on Oct 24, 2011 at 1:45pmRe: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
OK, before we get too carried away with the chest thumping, the NYT articles also had this unsavory tidbit, which I really wanted to ignore altogether:
May '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Ms. Ellis, but the other thing is that the left already owns old media, and the entertainment media, so new social media can only help conservatives.
Nov '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Yay! We're winning! Whatever it is.
Dec '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
If you can blunt an enemy's strength then you can defeat him by your strength. The Obama team's strength is media over message. Ours is the opposite. They try to destroy our message by sabotaging debates with biased moderators. We blunt their media hype by using unorthodox media to thwart their monopoly.
May '10
Re: #GOP is #Winning on Twitter
Obama already has MSNBC, CNN, etc., so is Twitter really going to help him?