Political Debate Via Twitter

Over the course of the last several months, I've been doing a series on Politics and Social Media. Most often this involves reviewing various new political social sites, like 20DC, candidate sites, or other seemingly static applications of politics online. Today marks a first - politicians embracing social media darling Twitter.

Barack Obama, as I mentioned in an earlier article about candidates online, has embraced Twitter from early in his campaign, as well as embracing other social media and networking opportunities, including creating his own web site for his constituents to use as a launching pad for their grass roots efforts. To that end it comes as no surprise that he would embrace the idea of using Twitter as a debate platform.

It did come as a surprise that political luddite John McCain would be on board with the idea. Perhaps his advisors are finally realizing that simply voting yes to whatever a telecommunications corporation tells him to without knowing the impact on technology and end users is a bad thing? Whatever the catalyst, both candidates and their support staff are on board with the Twitter debate.

How it works: starting late in the day on June 20th, the first of several daily questions will be posed to each candidate by Time Magazine's Ana Marie Cox (moderator). The candidate's staff will then be responsible for posting the answers on Twitter on their behalf (I presume the involvement of staff was a concession to McCain, but I could be wrong). They must adhere to the 140 character limit, though they can link to sites and posts that support their answer.

To see McCain's responses you need to follow his staffer Liz Mair, the online communications director of the Republican National Committee. For Obama's you need to follow his staffer Mike Nelson, a professor at Georgetown University and outside advisor to Obama’s campaign on issues of technology, media and telecommunications.

Barack Obama's main Twitter account will continue to be used for his campaign updates and thoughts, as it has been since he started it months ago. McCain's main Twitter… well, he doesn't really have one. There is an unoffical one, but I doubt it is McCain himself. If you know otherwise, let us know in the comments.

You can also follow the debate via Hashtags using the hashtag #pdfdebate if following the two staffers and the moderator is too noisy for you. If you have a question to pose to the candidates, go to the TechPresident or Public Democracy Forum sites. Another option for cutting the noise level down is to use Summize to track PDFDEBATE. The Twitter debate will last all weekend long and is being conducted in conjunction with the Public Democracy forum, which begins next week.