Social Media and the Presidential Campaign

When following both of the 2012 presidential candidates I learned many things.

Mitt Romney’s twitter feed is filled with advertisements promoting his app for smartphones.  This app will give the user all of the inside information first hand like who his VP will be, etc.  He also has many tweets that are geared to share how he will better our country, the steps he will take as president, and articles filled with why he is better than President Obama.  His Facebook page is filled with all of the same information but with more pictures and videos. 

Current President, Barrack Obama’s twitter feed is loaded with advertisements to win a chance to play basketball with the President and Michael Jordan.  He also has updates on his campaign as well as what’s going on in the Olympics and what the president is doing with pictures.   His Twitter feed and Facebook page look very similar except I think that there are more pictures on his Twitter feed than his Facebook (opposite to Romney). 

I learned many things about both candidates and felt the need to research a little bit more on both so I could really understand what they are all about (can’t you tell…I’m not really the politics type).   I learned that Romney changed his view on abortion, formerly he was in full support of abortion but recently he is only in favor of abortion if the mother is a victim of rape, incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger.  I also found that Romney is not in favor of embryonic stem cell research.  He would love to find a cure for cancer and is in full support to stop disease but does not support stem cell research because it involves bringing in a living thing to then have it killed.  Some thing that I learned about Barrack Obama is a greater knowledge for his Obamacare.  I learned many of the pro’s and con’s of this healthcare.  It’s plan is to reduce the healthcare costs, parents can add their children on their health insurance until they are 26; and some down falls are taxes will be raised in the majority of homes, millions of people may lose their company sponsored health plans, and so much more. 

I posted two articles dealing with the presidential campaign and I found that few of my Facebook friends “liked” and no one commented on the post.  I believe that it goes in hand with people not wanting to speak their mind about whom they choose to support.  I also think that with my generation/age group, we are not yet out there in the real world, many of us are still living off of our parents and the little money we earn, so we don’t really follow the candidacy as much as generations older than us that have to provide for themselves or others directly. 

I feel that blogging and social media is very important when dealing with the presidential election because it is a way for the candidates to get out there and for citizens to learn about them.  I also think that it is a way for people to share their ideas and knowledge about the presidential election for those of us who are a little bit on the “clueless” side when it comes to politics.  It is a great way to share knowledge and to learn as well.