It is being reported that Senator Chuck Grassley “slammed” President Obama on Twitter Sunday in response to the president’s Paris trip. In the first Tweet Grassley says:

Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us"time to deliver" on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.

Call me crazy, but does it look like a seventy five year old senator wrote this message? His second message which, like the first, came via txt states:

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a "hammer" u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL

Seriously, this looks like a fourteen year old girl wrote it. When asked, a spokesperson for the Senator “verified” that he had indeed written the Tweets. If you look at his Tweet stream there is ample txt msg lingo sprinkled throughout.

I do not doubt Senator Grassley’s ability to learn txt lingo, but in this case im nt buyin it.

Now that Twitter has gone mainstream everyone is clamoring to jump on the bandwagon. From the evening news, to sports, to entertainment it seems like practically everyone is using the social network these days, but not everyone is using it well. Some people in the political world in particular are having trouble understanding what Twitter is all about.

Failing marks would have to go to, among many others, Meghan McCain (@McCainBlogette) and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (@MitchMcConnell). Actually, I am not even sure that is the real Senator McConnell. He has no profile image and absolutely zero updates. Ms. McCain has plenty of updates and a nice picture, but her dialogue is a one-way street. There is very little engagement with her large group of followers which sort of defeats the purpose of her outreach efforts for the Republican Party. Combine that with the fact that she has over 42,000 followers and only following a little over 100 and you have a failure to leverage the full power of the service.

There are, however, some who do get it. Saul Anuzis (@sanuzis) gets it to the point of what some would call a mild case of "Twitter Abuse." He is following nearly 400 more people than follow him, he engages is regular dialogue with others, even if they disagree with his positions on issues, and has accumulated almost 5,000 updates. Another political hot shot who gets it is Karl Rove (@KarlRove). He has a nearly one to one ratio of following to follower, replies frequently to other Twitter users, and conducts a trivia contest he calls “TWITTERIVIA” throughout the week. In fact, I was floored when I received a direct message from him concerning a tweet I sent out about a ridiculous DailyKOS article about my 2006 Congressional campaign that had mentioned him. He gets it.

Twitter is still a relatively new thing and people will become more proficient over time. Mitch McConnell will get up to speed and Meghan McCain will probably block me for criticizing her. Some get it, others don’t, and some probably never will.

Conservatives were hopping mad at CNN yesterday over their coverage (or lack thereof) of the hundreds of Tea Party protests that took place across the country. After a correspondent lashed out at a protester during a live interview and exclaimed the protest was “not really family viewing” Twitter was ablaze with anger at CNN and what has been perceived as frequent obvious bias against Republicans.

This all came hot on the heels of a scathing Department of Homeland Security report released by the Obama administration that blasted “Rightwing Extremism”. Conservatives came out swinging yesterday and Twitter became the weapon of choice in the war of words:

@AliAkbar: Disappointed in CNN. Their coverage was not fair, not independent, and almost non-existent. #teaparty #msmbias

@justin_hart: Most incredible evidence of CNN bias... This reporter should be fired #TCOT #TEAPARTY http://ow.ly/2ZGm

@ericjodom: Have you seen the video of the CNN reporter spreading propaganda? http://twurl.nl/tenu4w #teaparty (I met her yesterday, BTW)

@joecaruso: CNN aptly proved that journalism is dead. http://is.gd/sKe6 #tcot #newmedia #teaparty

@FreedomRing: PROTEST CNN BY UNFOLLOWING ALL CNN TWEETS! #TCOT #sgp

Only time will tell if the momentum from the Tea Party protests rolls into a serious Conservative groundswell of action against CNN. Honestly, I hope it does.

President Obama’s inability to speak extemporaneously and his reliance on a teleprompter are already legendary. Who could forget the image of him speaking during the campaign at a rodeo with a teleprompter placed in the dirt in front of him?

Now an enterprising individual (or individuals?) has seized upon this situation and is taking political satire to new heights. The approach is simple, just set up a blog, Facebook account, and Twitter account as Barack Obama’s teleprompter and watch hilarity ensue.

Fake political personalities on Twitter are a dime a dozen. There is a fake Howard Dean and a fake John McCain among others. But TOTUS (Teleprompter of the United States) is the first, that I am aware of, to Twitter satire via an inanimate object.

In case you missed it, the updates during the president’s press conference were pretty amusing.

If you haven't noticed, they are flashing stats and info on my screen, which is why he is doing lots of "by the ways"

Keith Olbermann will be right back. My uncle up in Secaucus tells me he's getting his Depends changed.

Now if someone would just Twitter as Nancy Pelosi’s Blackberry…

It seems that members of Congress and their staff are having a hard time with the new BlackBerry Storm. After using the device and finding it difficult to do simple tasks like sending email, most users on Capitol Hill are ditching the touch screen for older BlackBerrys with an actual qwerty keyboard. One staffer summed up the experience this way:

“Three days later,” Mollineau said, “I literally walk in and he’s cursing with four-letter words, and he was slamming it down, saying, ‘I can’t get e-mail to work all right.’ It just is not for people here who mainly use their BlackBerrys for that.”

Okay, where do I start? First of all, given the collective age of the members of Congress I assume that most of them would be more comfortable with a rotary phone than any kind of keypad let alone a virtual keyboard. I can imagine the thoughts running through their heads as they fired up the Storm for the first time. It would almost be like handing them a piece of alien technology found on the ground in Roswell and expecting them to use it. That just ain’t gonna happen folks.

Seriously, when the vice president of the United States asks “What is the web site number?” what do you expect?

The GOP will be conducting a “Tech Summit” on Friday with the hopes of gathering new ideas in the areas of new media and communication. I, like most nerds, have a lot of ideas in general. But when you start asking about ideas related to technology I have a million. When you throw politics into the technology mix my thoughts are now approaching stimulus numbers. This is exactly what the RNC is counting on moving forward and I think it is a step in the right direction.

For what it’s worth, I would like to float one idea that I have in this area. I would like to see the RNC set up a new media production group that would handle viral video, music, entertainment programming, and short films. The group would write, film and record material that would be humorous at times, but would also communicate a message. Think SNL bailout skit here. The group would also write and produce music with a political message. I am thinking there are thousands of budding musicians out there that would be eager to work with this group. In the area of entertainment they would produce short films or regularly scheduled political satire programs. Sort of like Republican versions of Mad TV or The Daily Show. In addition to a full time, and fully funded, production unit the RNC should always solicit this type of material from Americans eager to make it. I believe if this were done right we could make major inroads with younger voters.

The syndication would be done almost exclusively online. Obviously video could be posted on YouTube or Google Video, but streaming media servers could be set up by the GOP to bypass any political censoring that websites may want to engage in. Music could be seeded to the Bit Torrent P2P network or through iTunes (this is aside from Podcasting which would be an entire article itself). Ideally the material would be so thought provoking, funny and entertaining that it would be spread around by thousands of people around the country.

Sounds kind of crazy right? Well, that’s the point isn’t it? I like the fact that the RNC is looking for new ideas first and foremost. The free flow of these ideas is exactly what the party needs to allow it to catch up (and pass) the DNC with technology. I am sure there are far more creative ideas than this out there. The RNC Tech Summit could start to turn things around for a party that finds itself behind in this area. If communication with the tech community stays open like this, they won’t be behind for long.

With the election of Michael Steele as the new Chairman of the Republican National Committee, many are hopeful about the future of the Party. Steele is the first African American to lead the GOP and only the second to Chair a major political party. On the heels of this historic achievement another historic event is getting ready to take place in the state of Michigan. An unofficial “Black Slate” is vying for several Vice-Chair positions within the Michigan Republican Party. Several African American Republicans are seeking the positions of Outreach, Grassroots and Ethic Vice-Chair.

What makes these state contests interesting, aside from the issue of race, is that the candidates are young and very tech savvy. Akindele Akinyemi, who is running for the Outreach position, is an avid blogger and podcaster in Detroit. He maintains an outspoken blog called Akindele Unleashed that deals with urban issues. Troy Rolling, candidate for Grassroots Vice-Chair, officially launched his bid with a polished YouTube video. The Ethic Vice-Chair candidate, Derek Moss, is also a blogger who has been a regular contributor to the Hip Hop Republican website.

All three candidates have launched websites for their respective candidacies and all are on Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, etc. If they are successful, this could be the start if a turning point for the Republican Party. Leveraging technology to make critical inroads into urban areas would be a huge accomplishment for the GOP. Hopefully these guys, if they are elected, will receive the support they will need to be successful.

You can visit their candidate websites here:

www.akindeleforoutreach.com
www.votetroyrolling.com
www.derekmoss4gop.com

On January 20, 2008 at 12:01 pm EST the incoming Obama administration wasted no time posting to the newly created blog on the official White House website. Throughout the day a total of four posts were made by someone. Unfortunately, it is not clear who is posting because there is no byline on the articles. So far “The Blog”, as it is officially called, reads like a casually written press release section.

It will be interesting to see how it will be used by the new administration moving forward. I can’t help but think of how this would have been totally exploited during the numerous Clinton administration scandals. Just think of Bill Clinton blogging during the Lewinsky fiasco and the impeachment proceedings that followed. It boggles the mind. I also can’t help thinking about missed communication opportunities that President Bush let slip by not blogging. It would have been a great way to hit back at critics and conduct an end run around the news media to communicate with Americans directly. In either case blogging could have potentially changed history or at least our perception of it.

Still, regardless of Party, the idea of a sitting President blogging in real time is fascinating. Will Obama blog in real time during his travels abroad? Will his blogging become a potential security risk? Will the President blog at all? It could be a communication dream or a public relations nightmare.

Hopefully, the blog will be just that, a blog. Looking at the posts so far, the new administration is not off to a good start. The first post should have been a personal message written to the American people by President Obama himself. After all, personal writing is what makes a blog a blog. Only time will tell how “The Blog” will be used…or abused.