Politics on Twitter

Twitter is a wonderful tool for political campaings. But one thing that greatly troubled me during the last campaign was the way that some candidates for office encouraged their supporters in destructive online behavior. It is so obvious when something is coming from a campaign, when you see the exact same phrase over and over again. I had to ask myself, would the candidate in question hire anyone who posted such sentiments online? Why would you egg your supporters on in conduct that you yourself would never tolerate in your own employees? And if you do prevail in the election, are you going to use your power to uphold online free speech? I just don't care for the spectacle of candidates manipulating their supporters into doing things that might have bad consequences for the individual supporter's life to say nothing of poisoning our national discourse.