Campaign 2012: Welcome to the Age of the Twitter Taunt

By Michael Scherer | @michaelscherer | May 30, 2011 | +

J.D. Pooley / Getty Images

Hey, you, fancy-pants candidate, with your big shot advisers, and your tailored press handlers, and your truth-telling pose. You ready for me? I’m not kidding. Are you really to have it out, mano a mano, in the Twitterverse, like a real avatar would? Because that’s where it’s going down. That’s where all the action is. That’s where anyone can shoot a zinger at anyone, and everyone gets to watch. Welcome to Campaign 2012.

You’ve probably heard about Mitt Romney’s pizza delivery to Obama HQ in Chicago. (He tweeted a picture of the delivery man sending the pies out.) But then did you know that just a few hours earlier, @timpawlenty had sent out this zinger?

@BarackObama sorry to interrupt the European pub crawl, but what was your Medicare plan?

Oh snap! Or that Hari Sevugan, one of the Democratic National Committee’s attack dogs, sent out this?

Dear @timpawlenty – do you have an opinion of @MittRomney‘s refusal to take a position on signing the ryan budget as president?

Kablow! Or remember a few weeks back with Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom took on Obama aide David Axelrod?

I wonder if @davidaxelrodwill praise Romney’s proposed executive order issuing Obamacare waivers to all 50 states?

Axelrod responded in kind.

@EricFehrnI’m not going comment either way until he lands on his final position.

Oooh. It hurts. There is, after all, something about this new medium that allows for the illusion of a one-on-one conversation at any moment. And it’s a conversation that everyone sees. It’s the new glove slap. And if you are not following these campaigns and their aides on Twitter, there is a good chance you will miss much of the action. Whereas once campaigns would trade one-liners in the press, now they can trade one-liners with each other. May the best one-liner win.

Related Topics: david axelrod, eric fehrnstrom, hari sevugan, twitter, Campaigns

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