-By Warner Todd Huston
… no really. Roll Call is reporting that the Democrats have finally figured out how to use Twitter and now they think it will win them the 2012 elections. I guess Al Gore, the inventor of the Internet, gave the DNC a call and let them in on that whole Internet tubes and when they went there they discovered this Twitter thingamajiggie. Crying eureka, the DNC then ran to the press to trumpet its new discovery.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Twitter will lead the Donkey Party to legislative majority once again.
Twitter.
That is their big solution, their grand plan, their hot item for the day.
In fact, California Democrat Congressman Mike Honda is so sure that Twitter is the answer that it is powerful enough to beat all them thar conservative think tanks and stuff.
“We know that we’re up against a team of about 43 think tanks on the other side. … But when you engage them in a good debate, they’re shallow. They have no other place to go except to keep saying the same things over and over again,” Rep. Mike Honda told attendees of the Democratic National Committee’s winter meeting in February.
The California Democrat pointed to the roles that Twitter and Facebook have played in affecting political climates, most recently in the context of the government upheaval in Egypt and labor disputes in Wisconsin. Democrats should harness that same potential when it comes to developing an effective messaging strategy this cycle, Honda said.
“I think when we have more air time and utilize technology … we can focus on getting control back of Congress in 2012,” he said.
See. Democrats don’t need no stinkin’ thinkers. They have Twitter.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I like Twitter and find it useful as a tool of communication. I use it every day myself. But to act as if it is some secret weapon for a future Democrat take over, well, it shows that Honda is right about shallowness in Washington D.C. Only it’s from the Democrats not all those “think tanks.”
Amusingly enough, Twitter’s platform product manager, Ryan Sarver, just announced that the social media service is going to torpedo third party apps from being able to interact with Twitter. These third party aps are what made Twitter so ubiquitous and effective. This move by Twitter might ruin the service…. And just when the Democrats finally discovered it, too!
Seriously, No wonder the Democrats got trounced last November.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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