“The media party line where everyone can listen in,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist.
“The town hall for the media and political elite,” said Erik Smith, a Democratic strategist and founder of Blue Engine Message and Media.
The power of Twitter to shape the debate (for better or worse) was on display shortly before Obama began, when Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, posted an error-riddled message that quickly went viral: “On floor of house waiting on ‘Kommandant-In-Chef’… the Socialistic dictator who’s been feeding US a line or is it “A-Lying?”
Indeed, Twitter’s ability to focus the pundit class helps explain why, in the fierce competition to control the political narrative, lawmakers, candidates, operatives and even the president are increasingly turning to it and other social media. The battle is the same as before, but they are now hoping to prevail 140 characters at a time.
“Conventional wisdom is like fast-drying concrete in the Twitter age – it doesn’t take long to harden,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “Twitter is one of the fastest ways to shape opinion.”
The State of the Union address spawned a bipartisan embrace of new photo- and video-sharing platforms, and a rush to create tweet table graphics and synchronized hashtags to amplify messages. Democrats and Republicans competed to make their views majority realities, perhaps with little regard to what the president actually said.
Congressional Republicans rallied around the hashtags #CloseTheGap, to push their message of reducing income inequality, and #YearOfAction, to call on Obama to act on some of their major proposals in the coming year. (Of course, especially after the president called for a “year of action” in his address, the #YearofAction took off among Republicans and Democrats alike.)
And, perhaps more notably, Republicans set up “recording stations” on Vine, the Twitter-owned platform for sharing six-second videos, and Instagram to allow caucus members to record short responses that they could share before, during and after the speech.
When Obama got to the part of his address where he said he had a pen and a phone, and was willing to go around Congress, when possible, through executive orders, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., was ready. As if on cue, he tweeted out a prerecorded Vine video featuring him sitting behind his desk and stating, “If the president has a pen and a telephone, we have the Constitution.”
Last week, Republicans brought in Sean Evins, Twitter’s partnerships manager, to give a tutorial on the best ways to use Vine. (Democrats did the same in November.) Evins’ message was simple: Use Vine and other social media platforms to bring constituents closer.
“You can report a Vine or send a tweet from your pocket from a different perspective than your constituents would ever get from just looking at TV,” Evins said. “They actually get to walk with their member towards the chamber or walk with their member into the office, and get the perspective the member has.”
Congressional Democrats were also encouraged to record short videos that echoed the administration’s themes and were shared on social media. Lawmakers were coordinating hashtags to underscore core Democratic goals for the coming year, including, in the Senate, #MinimumWage(to raise the hourly minimum wage to $10.10) and #Renew UI (to renew the emergency unemployment insurance benefits that expired in December).
Not to be outdone, the White House posted graphics and charts during Obama’s speech that echoed its themes and that were shared on Facebook or Twitter with one click.
In many ways, the heightened emphasis on social media reflected a new, risky way forward in U.S. politics: React now, reflect later.
“It has the strength of speed, with the limit of impetuousness,” Murphy, the Republican strategist, said.
But proponents argue that when social media functions properly, it can also have a democratizing effect.
“It doesn’t have to be an officer holder or even a member of the press,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic consultant who was an early adopter of social media. “It just has to be a citizen who says something interesting that catches the eye of a reporter or an office holder or a blogger, and all of a sudden it gets picked up by Twitter, and it may be one of the tweets that defines people’s view of what happens in the speech.”
One hashtag that seemed to catch on organically was #SOTUinThreeWords.
“Another wasted hour,” one Twitter user wrote under the name Conservative Realtor, offering a hypothesis for the evening. No word yet on whether that will be the tweet that goes viral.
Twitter one of the fastest ways to shape opinion
Twitter has fast become the conventional wisdom clearinghouse and real-time echo chamber for major political events- not to mention the forum where opinion on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address seemed to crystallize Tuesday evening before he had even finished speaking.