Make room Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher, because in the coming months those making a run at the White House will be a making a run at your Twitter followers as well.
Without question, social media played a major role in the historic 2008 presidential campaign. Pres. Barack Obama connected with his supporters through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, whereas GOP candidate John McCain failed to even have an email account at one point.
As the hunt for the next president starts to heat up, presidential candidates are taking to the Internet to garner supporters. Candidates know their best shot at becoming the next leader of the free world has to have the best viral campaign. Social media has become an important tool.
Republican candidate Tim Pawlenty announced his presidential run through Facebook. Pawlenty’s rival Mitt Romney tweeted his bid for another presidential run. Obama emailed his supporters a video announcing his reelection campaign last week. Former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin has been using Facebook to communicate her message to “friends.”
A quick look at Twittercounter.com can track a candidate’s Twitter followers over the past months. Each candidate’s Twitter has been steadily increasing. As of April 18, Pawlenty is in last place with 30,646 followers, Romney is slightly ahead with 36,585. A major jump for Republican candidates’ occurs with Palin’s 484,365 followers, but Obama leads them all with 7,443,798, respectively. Only Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears have more followers than Obama does; however, Twitter followers should only be taken as seriously as the polls this early in the race.
Social media isn’t the first technology to revolutionize bids for the White House. People may recall the first time a presidential debate was televised between former presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The better looking and relaxed Kennedy stole the election away from the more awkward Nixon, whose sweat was visible under the bright television lights. Also, supporters of Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t even know he was in a wheelchair because they only knew him through his voice on the radio.
Many are looking forward to one candidate’s 2012 election campaign, and that’s Donald Trump’s. Tied down by legal issues because of his television show, Trump has been hinting at a presidential run for months now. Trump recently said he would announce his bid on the finale of Celebrity Apprentice — a clever ploy that will both skyrocket ratings for the show as well as get many hits on Youtube. However, if Trump really wants big ratings he should let Gary Busey and Meatloaf duke it out in the finale.
What candidates will have to look out for are the fake accounts created in their names. While it should be easy to distinguish whether an account is legitimate or not, some will fall for the trap. When someone searches one of the aforementioned candidates names on Twitter, they’ll find hundreds of impersonators. Be sure to follow only the verified accounts.
We’re still months away from the election, but the presidential campaign is already getting interesting. Being inundated with messages from each candidate in multiple media outlets hopefully provides voters with a good sense of who to vote for. From previous experience, the Obama campaign is clearly the favorite to take the election, but if the Republican Party can continue their social media roll, this will be a tight race.
Chasen Doerr is a junior journalism major and contributing writer for the Daily 49er.
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