Here are the Twitter Klout rankings for all Governors, Representatives, and Senators. We've had quite a bit of interesting activity the last week, so much so that you'll find the details below the fold.
We've been seeing Democratic candidates turn up in the #p2 hashtag for some months, looking for supporters and resources for their campaigns. Last week we had a first – Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia District 4 appeared and made some comments about health care reform, then actually engaged in a conversation with us. He is the highest Klout Congressman on the Democratic side and with just a little bit more interaction with supporters he'll knock John Boehner off as the top House member of all. He's making the right moves, too – asking around as to who does what, thanking those who've labored on issues, and that was just the start ...
The trend of attention and access for those involved in Twitter continued. I had a back channel discussion with a member of the Congressman's staff, and Congressman Johnson gave us a truly amazing thirty minutes of his time on Monday, answering questions about health care reform, his job as the southeast regional whip, and giving us some insight into what Congress will do next ... and how we can help.
Present for the interview were Sandi Behrns, Karoli Kuns, Jesse LaGreca, Beth Becker, and Neal Rauhauser. Unable to attend but wanting the audio was GottaLaff from The Political Carnival, and a couple of local Georgia bloggers also couldn't make it but wanted the details so they could write, too.
This is, I think, the beginning of a trend. Politicians are leery of the blogosphere and social media; message discipline is tight once you get to the federal level and they can't be seen dealing with kooks or gotcha media figures. Individually few of us command this sort of access, but if a group of us get together, we have some professional media folks and someone (Beth) who has served as campaign communications director facilitating, then the elected official gets a good feeling about spending time with us. We get blogger treasure – quotes and detailed information straight from the source. The elected official gets broad access to the budding media environment driven by Twitter, Facebook, and the Progressive blogs. The only loser here is the toxic, untrustworthy mainstream media.
It is my greatest hope for 2010 that this interview is the beginning of a process rather than just an event. The conservatives own Twitter? Yes, yes they do ... for the moment. If we keep getting good access and interaction with our representatives there are enough of us to simply take that title away from the right, we just need to be a tiny bit more organized. You Kossacks can help make this increased level of access a reality. Go and join Congressman Johnson's Facebook group. Go and follow his Twitter ID. Even more important, send him a tweet thanking him for his hard work on health care reform or make a comment on the Facebook group.
Prove that we're here. Prove that we're ready to provide a sensible interface for elected officials. Prove that we're a counter to the right wing slime machine that infests social media.
Senate Democrats
Democratic Governors
