{"id":926,"date":"2011-07-27T08:35:37","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T12:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=926"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:28:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:28:48","slug":"140-characters-and-no-character-the-first-ever-twitter-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/07\/27\/140-characters-and-no-character-the-first-ever-twitter-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"140 Characters and No Character: The First Ever Twitter Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week the Tea Party website\u00a0The Tea Party.net<\/a>\u00a0conducted the first ever Presidential Twitter Debate.\u00a0 Actually, according to the moderator its title was \u201cTwitter Pres debate\u201d (got to save that character space!).\u00a0 The debate was conducted fully on Twitter; all questions were posted on Twitter by the host site, and candidates gave their answers entirely on Twitter.\u00a0 The link to the full debate is\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/span>The Tea Party site is owed credit for managing the event well.\u00a0 As simple as Twitter seems, organizing a variety of separate feeds into a single chronological stream to simulate conversation can lead to a host of problems.\u00a0 However, no noticeably technical issues occurred.\u00a0 The discussion went up in real time without a hitch, and gave the appearance of an actual presidential debate.\u00a0 And yet, if you look at the content, it becomes clear that this \u201cdebate\u201d in no way deserves the title.<\/p>\n

The first major problem with this forum is an extension of the basic criticism of Twitter \u2013 with only 140 characters, it\u2019s hard to say anything of substance.\u00a0 This is fine for basic microblogging to show what topics are \u201ctrending\u201d across the country, but it doesn\u2019t make for a very meaningful elaboration of an individual\u2019s qualifications to be President of the United States.\u00a0 Take this opening statement for example:<\/p>\n

\u201c@140townhall<\/a>\u00a0Great to be w\u00a0@thetea<\/a>\u00a0Party_net. I am running for pres because Obamacare threatens the soul of America\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not exactly a bold vision for the future.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just the canned opening lines.\u00a0 The questions and answers are so slimmed down that they don\u2019t even measure up to sound bites.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the responses on the all-critical issue of raising the debt ceiling (the following are all full answers):<\/p>\n

Moderator<\/strong>: Question 1: As president, how will you avoid continually raising the debt ceiling?<\/p>\n

Newt Gingrich<\/strong>: We don\u2019t need Obama\u2019s \u201cbalanced approach\u201d (code for raise taxes). We need a balanced\u00a0@140townhall<\/a>townhall<\/p>\n

(Ok . . . that doesn\u2019t really make any sense. I\u2019m not even sure if that second line is an actual sentence.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Rick Santorum<\/strong>: Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment and work for its ratification across the country!<\/p>\n

(Love the enthusiasm, but your policy proposal consists entirely of passing a Constitutional amendment that will never pass?)<\/em><\/p>\n

Herman Cain<\/strong>:\u00a0\u00a0@140townhall<\/a>\u00a0As President, I would focus on restructuring entitlement programs instead of reshuffling them.<\/p>\n

(Wait, is reshuffling an option? \u00a0Quick \u2013 have we checked how much money that would save?)<\/em><\/p>\n

Michelle Bachmann<\/strong>: .@140townhall<\/a>\u00a0Only way to avoid future increases is fund. change the way we spend. We must\u00a0#cutcapbalance<\/a>\u00a0and repeal Obamacare.<\/p>\n

(Policy in the form of hashtags \u2013 brilliant!)<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the most important issue of the year, and these individuals are vying to lead our country.\u00a0 I want to know why they form their policies around a Balanced Budget Amendment that has no chance of passing.\u00a0 I want to know why they aren\u2019t worried that cutting spending will stunt growth and pull us back into recession. \u00a0And, I want to know how they would respond as President under their Balanced Budget system if another economic crisis occurred, requiring \u2013 as in 2008 \u2013 immediate action with costs far beyond our revenues in order to prevent global economic collapse.\u00a0 I want substance, but in this form of discourse I\u2019m never going to get it.<\/p>\n

Perhaps even worse than the lack of concrete policy is the loss of intangibles; with the debate composed of 140 character texts, we get no sense character from the candidates themselves.\u00a0 Compare the Twitter debate to this classic exchange involving\u00a0George W. Bush and Bill Clinton<\/a>\u00a0during the 1992 election:<\/p>\n

In four minutes, you see everything you need to know about why Bill Clinton knocked H.W. Bush out of office, and it had little to do with content.\u00a0 Bush was awkward, apathetic, and clearly could not relate to the woman posing the question.\u00a0 Clinton connected with her instantly.\u00a0 It\u2019s these spontaneous moments that make debates so valuable.\u00a0 They show us when a president\u00a0lacks the knowledge and expertise<\/a>\u00a0 to hold office.\u00a0 They tells us when a candidate\u00a0can\u2019t handle the criticism<\/a>. they\u2019ll need to shrug off as our nation\u2019s leader.\u00a0 And, they demonstrate to us\u00a0when an individual has the gravitas<\/a>. to be our Commander-in-chief. \u00a0 These are the moments we need in elections, and they\u2019re something that Twitter #willneverprovide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Laperruque Last week the Tea Party website\u00a0The Tea Party.net\u00a0conducted the first ever Presidential Twitter Debate.\u00a0 Actually, according to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-eW","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}