Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas In the moments following Obamas win
Twitter was in a frenzy with a peak of
327000 tweets a minute. Love it or hate it Twitter and its role in politics appears to be here to stay.
Says Texas Rob Johnson campaign manager for Texas Gov. Rick Perrys failed presidential run ... Twitter clearly changed the dynamic this cycle and will continue to play a bigger role in years to come.
One tweet from Obama: Four more years
It showed a picture of him hugging his wife and became the most retweeted tweet in the history of the site before the news-cycle was over.
We no longer click refresh on websites or wait for the paper boy to throw the news on our porch
said Johnson. We go to Twitter and learn the facts before others read it.
Johnson said Twitter was the driving force behind some of the years biggest political news stories.
The twitterverse shapes the news and public opinion Johnson said. The Internet is truly a real and powerful tool in politics.
The 2012 race was the first where Twitter played such an important role. Top campaign advisers like Romneys Eric Fehrnstrom and Obamas David Axelrod engaged in Twitter battles through the year.
With many political reporters and campaign staff on Twitter and Facebook social media websites were often the first place news broke. Some top news stories were kept alive or thrust into the headlines after becoming hot topics on Twitter.
It was one heckuva echo chamber Dante Scala a political science professor at the University of New Hampshire said in an email.
In future elections candidates and their campaign staffs will have to include social media as another
battleground Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons said.
This was the first Twitter election and social media is now fully a part of our election mechanics Simmons said. Going forward candidates must have an aggressive social media strategy if they want to win.
