Obama Flunks Twitter; Real Test Today

07 July 2011 |permalink | email article

The President’s Twitter town hall on Wednesday was an interesting if tardy experiment but only confirmed what tens of millions of users already know: 140 characters or less. Obama took questions sent via Twitter, but answered them the old fashioned way – verbally, neither cool nor succinct.

For Obama it’s a basic violation of basic Twitter rules of etiquette – excesses of anywhere from hundreds of characters to even thousands. He began one answer about the debt ceiling with a suggestion that accurately suggested a lengthy answer.

Today Obama must be far more precise with GOP and Democratic leaders on cutting a broad deficit reduction deal. Last week, as Frank Rich noted, he hit a welcome note when urging some higher corporate taxes for hedge funds and the like. But his past forays have been sporadic and tentative and one wonders why he’s failed to seize the moment and battle for the big picture.

Texas: Signals grow that Texas Gov. Rick Perry, never a close buddy of former President George W. Bush; leans toward seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Turns out, however, Texans are not enthusiastic about a Perry run – only 33% saying he should run, with 57% saying he should not.. But Republicans favor his candidacy, 52-38.

United Farm Workers: Jerry Brown, in his prior terms as governor, was a staunch ally of Cesar Chavez and the farm workers. He signed a bill granting farmworkers the secret ballot, a setting the stage for a series of organizing victories. A card-check bill to assist the UFW repeatedly passed the Legislature but then-Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to sign it. This time Brown killed the bill, saying he was unconvinced that the “drastic change” to labor laws was worth it.  Opponents argued that the union would intimidate workers into signing union cards. It’s clear that Brown has deeply softened his commitment to social justice issues.

Quotable

Services like Facebook and Twitter “are the modern day equivalent of the office cafeteria, a local bar or the coffee shop. Those venues have diminished some in modern times and to some extent have been replaced by social media.” – Ray Valdes, a research analyst, said the real time reactions to the Casey Anthony trial verdict reflected the gradual adoption of the Web as a primary mode of communication throughout the day. (What happens to the Web’s role in social media after sundown when the Vox populi disperse?).

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