Twitter chatter: Describing Romney, Obama campaigns in 3 words
With less than a month to go to election day, voters — and therefore social media — are becoming increasingly loud and ornery about their presidential preferences.
On Monday that meant the hashtags #ObamaCampaignIn3Words and #RomneyCampaignIn3Words took hold on Twitter. And, surprise, most of the twitterati’s comments about the two candidates, highlighted with those two headlines, were not so positive.
Describing the Obama campaign in three words on Tuesday on the micro-blogging site were these offerings: “Karl Freakin Marx”; “Dumb, Dumb, Dumb”; “Attacking Romney’s Success”; “Making America Canada”; “Dead People Voting”; and “Blame the Altitude” — the latter a reference to Al Gore’s speculation that Obama’s mediocre debate showing might, just might, have been caused by the altitude in Denver.
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A small fraction of the tweetage for the president was positive, such as: “Four. More. Years” and “You Lose Romney.”
The #RomneyCampaignIn3Words hashtag also didn’t appear to be designed to draw out high praise for the Republican presidential nominee. That tag came with these offerings: “President of 1%”;” “Screw Sesame Street”; “Trust, don’t verify”; “An Empty Suit”; “Flip Flopping Phony”; and “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers” -- apparently not even on three-word Twitter memes. Romney got a few nice mentions on Twitter too, such as: “Delivering More Jobs” and “America is Exceptional.”
The latest Twitter fusillade demonstrates how the social media reward the fast and furious, not necessarily the precise.
Nearly every day of the week, it seems Politics Now gets a press release for a new gadget, tool, or some-such that claims to measure the electorate in meaningful new ways. The newbies particularly like to mulch and reprocess information from social media — particularly Facebook and Twitter — to try to tell us something different about voters.
Often they confirm what we already know. The most intense partisans dominate the social media space. The voters who will likely decide the election are too busy leading their lives.
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Twitter: @latimesrainey
MORE COMMENTARY FROM JAMES RAINEY:
Debate moderator ‘Silent Jim Lehrer’ gets one last turn
Presidential debate: Round One goes to Romney, by many measures
Romney on a roll? Remember John Kerry, in debate, beat George W. Bush
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