OFA Unleashes Twitter Health Care Attack On Members Of Congress
Here come the tweets.
In the latest frontier of new media mobilization for health care reform, Obama’s political operation is now calling on supporters to deluge members of Congress via … Twitter.
Organizing for America has just rolled out a new device that allows you to enter your address and get directed to your Representative’s Twitter feed.
“All signs point to it being incredibly close, possibly coming down to a small handful of representatives or even a single vote,” says OFA’s new device, which will be distributed to supporters today via social networking tools. “You’ve called. You’ve written. Now, you can `tweet’ your representative and ask them to vote in favor of reform.”
OFA unleashed a similar wave of Twitter atttacks on Senators earlier this year, but this one is coming on the eve of a crucial vote.
Hard to imagine that a hailstorm of tweets will do anything that some old-fashioned arm-twisting from Obama and Dem leaders couldn’t accomplish, but on the other hand, it can’t hurt to exert pressure through every conceivable channel. It can’t hurt to keep everyone energized by looking like you’re doing everything in your power, either.
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Whatever it takes!
Here’s where I think it helps. Conservatives have latched on to Twitter as their new media of choice, as have many members of the establishment press. Any Congress person who has a Twitter account shouldn’t be allowed to be swamped with Tea Party messages the day before a big vote–and any reporters following politicians on Twitter shouldn’t be allowed to witness the same.
As an aside, the rate at which conservative activists latched on to Twitter earlier this year, almost on orders from the RNC, FreedomWorks, and others, shows how primed they are.
Wonder why they haven’t tried the marches on the capital yet?
I mean heck, with the kind of support Obama gets from neighboring VA and MD and also within’ DC, I wouldn’t see why they couldn’t fire up a few thousand people at a moments notice.
They just need to get all the news orgs to take note. If they only had a propaganda network like the conservative wing of the GOP has in FOX they could get free promos on national T.V.
There really is no coordinated network of messaging like you see with the conservative wing of the GOP.
I mean, they’ve got FOX, Drudge, Talk Radio, all the right leaning web sites and the entire Murdoch global network all coordinating messaging on GOP propaganda day in, day out. They ALL tow the conservative GOP line, never question the conservative GOP, always coordinate attacks, relentlessly.
Sure, there are left leaning blogs and some of the MSNBC evening programming is left leaning but I don’t detect the kind of coordinated attacks from various media sources the right uses. Not even close.
I guess we didn’t get our fill yesterday:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/1109/Capitol_Hill_Tea_Party_II.html
I wonder what protest signs we’ll see tomorrow.
Weekly Standard has a wonderful review of repulsive protest signs:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/11/gibbs_can_you_imagine_if_5_yea_1.asp
Excerpt: “I would argue that the White House Press Secretary implying a joke about how protesters are rednecks prone to anal rape would fall into the category of “stunning” and “personally disagreeable,” but I digress.”
Given the effort that the Democrats have put into their health reform efforts and how much of their credibility they have hung upon it, they have little choice but to push their message with every possible media format possible. Telling supporters to Tweet puts these supporters directly in contact with their representatives in the most the nonconfrontational way possible and more importantly with very little effort. Getting people in the streets looks good for the camera, but requires far more effort and time, something the Democrats have little to spare.
I’m going to pass this around to the tea party organizations. Nice work, OFA. Saves us a bunch of time when Pelnazi shuts the cameras and phones off when she doesn’t get her way.
“Conservatives have latched on to Twitter as their new media of choice….”
Right wingers like twitter because it limits thought to 144 characters or less.
Even Orwell didn’t think to limit thought to only 144 characters.
‘Limited Thought’ and ‘Right Wing’ are almost interchangeable definitions of each other.