Politicians And Social Networking Sites Can Be A Dangerous And Telling Mix

King David tangoed but didn't tweet

Many of us have been in shock and awe at how our political class has managed to screw up using social networking tools by diving into the shallow end of the pool head first. Paleolithic Congressman-- and would-be Michigan Governor-- Pete Hoekstra mistakenly betrayed sensitive, even top secret, information because he just couldn't wait to tweet to his office, forgetting that even an al Qaeda operative in a bunker can subscribe to his Twitter account. He soon figured out to stop that kind of stuff and just use his Twitter account to display his rather dense, sick sense of humor.

Even funnier than Hoekstra's run ins with Twitter, was how the hapless Jeff Frederick, then the Virginia Republican Party chairman (since dumped), gave away GOP strategy for how to change the partisan balance in the state Senate, allowing the Democrats to counter their efforts and win the day.

Yesterday's CQPolitics ran a feature on how both political parties are mining Facebook pages for opposition research. Ironically, they start with the story of how Establishment hack Gil Cedillo tried smearing Emanuel Pleitez in the recent special election to replace Hilda Solis in Congress. Cedillo's ugly tactic-- claiming Pleitez, an admirable, albeit studious, policy wonk, was secretly all about women, "hard liquor," dancing on tables and partying all night-- backfired so badly that it was probably the decisive factor in throwing the race to Judy Chu (in a Hispanic-majority district).

Opposition researchers say they couldn’t be happier.

“It’s a godsend for us,” said Jason Stanford, president of Stanford Research. “Most times you have to get someone’s enemies to give you an embarrassing photo. Now, candidates themselves are posting them on the Internet.”... In 2006, Facebook pictures of Tennessee Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker’s daughter kissing a woman and attending an event where people were partially clothed made the rounds on the Internet.

... In 2008, a Facebook controversy involving the son of Colorado Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, made headlines.
Justin Schaffer, 19, issued a public apology after word circulated of his Facebook “bumper stickers” which included “Slavery Gets Shit Done,” an image of Jesus holding a machine gun in front of a Confederate flag and captioned “What Would a Republican Jesus Do?” and others.

One of my neighbors is the daughter of the New York State former chair of the Republican Party, Sandy Treadwell. His daughter drives a Democratic car (a hybrid) with a Treadwell bumper sticker on one side and an Elect Barack Obama sticker on the other side. Her dad was running for Congress against Kirtsen Gillibrand and lost, after spending over $5 million out of his own purse. The daughter never put a picture of her car on the Net but... well, it's a small world and somehow a picture was circulated. Rudy Giuliani's daughter, on the other hand, just up and joined the popular Obama For President Facebook Page.

There are no firm statistics on how many politicians actively use Facebook, but the company says the numbers will only increase as membership continues to rise. Facebook claims 200 million active users, including 60 million in the United States. The site figured prominently in the 2008 elections in which all major presidential candidates used Facebook and other Internet tools.

“Candidates are going to Facebook because that’s where the voters are,” said Adam Conner, Facebook’s D.C. Associate for Privacy and Public Policy.

Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum, which covers the intersection of politics and technology, said Internet tools are “the most powerful, least expensive, and effective organizing tool ever invented by man.”

As long as Facebook remains a driving force, candidates need to learn how to use it most effectively, he said.

“Facebook has become the new town square in democracy with all the good things and all the bad things,” he added, “... but if you want to be at the center of a community...  and be heard, there’s no better place in our current day and age than Facebook to amplify your message and to find out what others are saying or thinking about what you’re saying.”

Yesterday the Washington Post featured the story of a civil servant who lost his job because his tweets showed him to be lazy and bigoted. He was fired. Personally, I love tracking GOP extremists on Twitter. One irresistible target is Marco Rubio, the far right candidate for the U.S. Senate seat in Florida, a man of great self-righteousness and verve but with abysmally limited intelligence. For one thing, Rubio doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut and, paying homage to his pals at the NRA the other day, he twittered away about how much better off Iranian protesters would be if that country had a strong Second Amendment, apparently unable to grasp the idea of guns being met by tanks.

Unfortunately, although his e-mails are available for anyone who cares to read them, South Carolina Republican nutcase and typically Republican adultering hypocrite, Mark Sanford, wasn't tweeting his affair with his Argentine mistress. Worse yet, he isn't tweeting the elaborate defense that has seeped out from his inner circle-- stuff like comparing his adultery to that of King David-- the one from the Bible! He is, however, on another powerful social networking site: YouTube. Get a load of this:



Could this actually work-- comparing himself to a Biblical Jewish king? Even in South Carolina?


UPDATE: A Bright Side To The Bizarre Mark Sanford Morality Play?

One especially virulent right-wing propagandist frets that "a sex scandal a week from the Republicans will guarantee us government health care by the fall... And once government health care's in place the game's over: Socialized medicine redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in all the wrong ways, and, if you cross that bridge, it's all but impossible to go back. So, if ever there were a season for GOP philanderers not to unpeel their bananas, this summer is it."

Republicans not unpeeling their bananas-- all the way 'til fall? Not likely. Marco-- suave god of sex and tango; no more self-righteous, Bible-thumping prig? I bet he's still as viciously, hysterically opposed to same sex relationships as he was before he decided to jettison his own traditional marriage. Maureen Dowd points out that the Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon-- Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed-- stop being two-faced. And that's the pathology captured in Frank Rich's far more substantive column about gay Americans, 40 Years Later, Still Second-Class Americans. Second-class Americans because the Mark Sanfords found a way to make that status work for themselves career wise and second-class Americans because gays haven't mustered the strength or the strategy to make politicians like Barack Obama take their plight seriously enough to spend the political capital necessary to change it.