Today’s dose of comedy: Twitter will save Democrats in 2012, says speaker at DNC
I can’t do much better than to quote the first paragraph of this article in its entirety:
Democrats are hoping they’ve found a secret weapon for winning back the House in 2012: Twitter.
To quote a famous faux-professor, stop laughing. It get’s better:
“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."
As opposed to the 140 character sound bites in Twitter? You’re going to make a sophisticated argumentative reponse tht snds lik its a txt msg bcuz u haf 2 cmprss n2 140 chars? ROFL!
Why, the event was so successful, one delegate created a Twitter account! Right there at the event! Really!
A Democratic leadership aide described the event as a “nice hands-on training” for Members less familiar with social media, and it even led to one Member signing up for Twitter on the spot:
@DelegateDonna (Democratic Del. Donna Christensen of the Virgin Islands).
Just think – a DNC delegate managed to do something so complicated that thousands of teenagers do it unassisted every day! What a triumph! 2012 is in the bag, man!
Yep, social media is going to save the Democrats. It will finally, finally get their elegant, persuasive message out.
They’ve had such tremendous obstacles, after all. Why, they’ve had to rely on such limited resources up to now. They’ve only had a bunch of their own think tanks, three broadcast news networks, one cable news channel that openly supports them and another that keeps a fig leaf of pretense that they don’t, every remaining non-bankrupt major city paper except the Wall Street Journal, a slew of pretentious magazines, and a government-funded national radio network that has come right out and admitted where they stand. On the Internet, they’ve had to rely on such a thin guard of sites: Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Media Matters, DogLakeOnFire (or whatever it is, I forget), TPM, etc. etc. I mean, just how far can Soros’ billions go? Those stupid rubes must need some serious educating to realize the wonder and magnificence that is collectivism. The work just never ends!
Hey, at least they’ve stopped explaining that Obama just needs to make more speeches. He seems to have taken that to heart. In the midst of some of the biggest foreign policy happenings of the decade, Obama has decided the best place he can spend time is the golf course. I’d like to disagree with him, but given what he would probably do if he actually did anything, I really can’t.
They’ve got a president who would rather be a dictator, but the problem is their message.
They were given control of all branches of the federal government, and the result was an economy in the dumper, unprecedented and unsupportable debt, one foreign policy blunder after another, a healthcare bill so hated that it help them suffer an historic election loss in 2010… but their real problem is getting their message out.
As in 2010, I hope this delusion continues. Please, please let them keep getting their message out. The union protesters in Madison, for example, are doing great work in this area.
They have clearly communicated the Democratic Party message. It’s this: You intend to keep on sucking every possible bit of money while telling the rest of us exactly what sort of lives we’re allowed to lead.
That’s your message in a nutshell. Good news: it will fit in a post on Twitter.
I have to confess…
my twitter is virginal, and has yet to tweet. Or, I don’t remember doing it, which makes it really monumental, right?
I have a twitter account. I’ve had it almost three years, since I first investigated what Twitter was all about. Befitting my evaluation of it, I named the account thisispointless.
It has almost four hundred followers. I’m pretty sure that at least one hundred of them are human instead of bots.
I understand the simple concept, but if I or anybody tweets … what is to say that anybody wants to listen ?
I’m ready to sign up to listne to any person or bank who wants to get out money .. otherwise … ZZZZZzzzzzz.
Any time anyone trots out social media as the savior of anything i immediately write off any ability for that particular thing to be saved. At its core social media is dispersed and uncontrollable. You can tweet all night and day, but noone has to listen. The means of dispersing a message is no substitute for an actually powerful message. The enclaves of social media are by design used to “preach to the choir” to reach people interested, its not well setup to reach people who have no interest in what you are selling.
A good point about preaching to the choir, and I should have called that out.
Yeah, I remember the heady days of 1998 when just injecting the word “web” into the discussion caused everyone’s head to spin. Today it’s “social media”. It’s the same basic problem, as you point out. The fact that getting out your message is effectively free doesn’t matter if no one cares about hearing it.
One thing, though… We are seeing the choir being remarkably candid and…well…stupid about what they say.
It makes for a very interesting record. As in the published death-threats against Wisconsin GOP folks.
Let’s look at this the way a liberal would:
1. Libs have NO problems with mob violence, as we’ve seen in Wisconsin over the past several weeks.
2. Twitter is a good way to arrange flash mobs, as we’ve seen in Egypt and even in American shopping malls.
So, it’s natural that they would embrace a technology that makes forming a mob easier, don’t you think?
It’s also good for sharing reloading recipes.
Naysayers! Twitter has made Egypt FREE! It has overthrown the Mullaocracy of Iran, and set Libya on the path to truth, justice and the Libyan way!
Of course it will save the Democrats! The above instances alone demonstrate it’s awesome power!
Yeah. That’s the Ticket !!
So in 140 characters, explain how this will make them win ?
Twitter isn’t about holding your finger in a dike till help arrives, but it could be.
But I don’t think that communicating really was a problem in the last election, except possibly the Democrats finding a connection to reality. Their persistence in believing that communication is their problem and not the message itself is their real weakness. In that regard, Twiitter will merely force them to use shorter messages that still don’t resonant.
At least then we know they won’t repeat the past mistakes of the British Labour Party who were credited with writing the “Longest Suicide Note in History.“
Because in 140 characters they can only write snark and sentiment, it will serve them well.
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To pick a bone, Billy, the WSJ’s editoral board is decidedly right. Its news pages are left (but unlike the NYTimes et al, honestly so).
Oh, I realize that. However, at least the entire publication isn’t totally in the tank for the Democrats, as are the NYT, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe…
You might also add ‘Investors Business Daily’ with their 200K +/- subscribers.
You also left off the entire indoctrination, education establishment that churns out two million drolling morons each year to fill the Democrat ranks.
Why didn’t “indoctriantion” line out?
Maybe they should aim Twitter at the EPA …
TWIT;
From :thefreedictionary.com
3. Slang A foolishly annoying person.
I can’t help but think this is the root of twitter.
Maybe it is just me but when I read the doc, I got the distinct impression that this was a Hail Mary in the hopes of pulling down a couple o’ million votes among the not so energized young voters.
You have to remember. People that end to vote democratic kina lose their train of thought and comprehensio ability after 140 characters so they may have something there.