John Edwards is the Only Twittering Candidate
Posted on April 2, 2007
Most people using Twitter are aware that presidential candidate John Edwards has a Twitter at twitter.com/johnedwards. John Edwards is one of the top 100 twits listed on Twitterholic. And, until recently, Edwards' Twitter account was also one of the five listed on Twitter's public timeline. Not as many Twitter users may be aware that John Edwards responded to a question on Twitter a couple weeks ago that was posed by blogger Robert Scoble. You can see the response here and in the screenshot below.
Robert Scoble did interview John Edwards for the ScobleShow so Edwards knew who Scoble was when he responded to his Twitter comment. A New York Times article says this Twitter interaction between John Edwards and Robert Scoble may be the "first policy clarification from a major candidate on social software."
But the larger aim is clearly to woo the sort of tech-savvy Democrats who can harness online gadgetry to benefit the Edwards cause. And Twitter stands out, both for its cachet among true tech cognoscenti and the level of commitment it exacts from users. Plugged in with mobile wireless devices, especially active users post and respond on the site dozens of times a day.So far the other presidential candidates do not appear to be active on Twitter. There are Twitters for Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama but it is unclear if these are official. John McCain's and Mitt Romney's possible Twitters have not even been registered and bring up 404 errors.So it's not surprising that Edwards dictates his entries to an aide, who enters them on the site. It's also not surprising that many of the entries are terse to the point of near-semaphores, such as this post of a month ago: "In san antonio."
However, it is surprising to note that Edwards has interactively Twittered his way into committing some actual news. Well-known blogger Robert Scobie came across a Twittered declaration from Edwards that his campaign would be "carbon neutral," and posted a text reply asking how a fast-traveling presidential campaign could ever hope to redress its fearsome carbon-consumption deficit.
Much to Scobie's surprise, Edwards promptly Twittered a promise to offset the carbon he generated by funding alternative-energy research - marking what seems to be the first policy clarification from a major candidate on social software.