Politwitter
The Twitter bandwagon is well and truly in full swing, with hip characters such as Big Kev, Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey, Kate Ellis, Nigel Scullion and Tony Burke all getting in on the action. However, I believe that this time they have bitten off more than they can chew, and will soon be breaking one of the number one rules of politics.
Politicians are elected by the people, for the people. While in practise they are generally serving the interests of their party, they also have historically kept in touch with the electorate and been generally approachable. To raise an issue with a politician, all you need to do is write them a letter.
Letters written to a politician will be answered; in fact it is unthinkable that no response would be received to a letter written to the office of, say, Malcolm Turnbull. Sure, it much be a response from a lackey, but you still feel loved. With email, the same applies (with the obvious exception of the Rev. Fred).
Now with Twitter however, these pollies are eliciting thousands of messages from Middle Australia every day. Many of these tweets have pressing questions crammed into their 140 characters, and yet the vast majority will go unanswered.
This is a dangerous game to play, people. If my question isn’t worth 140 characters, then your policy surely isn’t worth my vote.
July 7, 2009 7:03 pm 
