For information on political issues, Twitter can act as a news aggregator, a type of real-time Delicious where you find out the articles shaping opinions as they happen.
Some people have become prolific in their poli-tweets, giving insight through obscure blogs and articles which may never have come to light. Through retweeting, these articles change opinions often more effectively than mainstream media which has been coming under fire as of late.
Political tweets are generally divided into 2 camps: the left-wing and the right-wing. These are usually noted by their hashtags. Leftwing people tend to use #p2, the preferred “progressive 2.0” hashtag, with #topprog (Top Progressives) and the lesser-used #rebelleft (usually for more left-leaning tweeters). Republicans and those on the right tend to use #tcot (Top Conservatives On the Net), #iamthemob (which lets people know that the “town hall mobs” are comprised of real people who identify as such), and both sides lately have been using tags such as #hcr (Health Care Reform) or #stophcr (for those against Health Care Reform).
A future post will be dedicated to those on the right whose politweets are lighting up the twittersphere, but for now, here are some left-wing TWILFs you might want to look into:
- @Shoq is one of the most dynamic and retweeted people on the left, whose tweets are almost always humorous and thought-provoking.
- @Maddow is MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow who, while loved and admired by thousands, doesn’t always tweet very much, and sometimes tweets one-word tweets (“Useful!”) which connect to a link — that you may or may not have time to read through. A definite staple of the follower diet, but not necessarily the most interesting.
- @QueerJohnPA is not just a compendium of GLBT-related news as the name may imply, but actually a committed progressive who tweets on a variety of interesting topics. His tweets are link-intensive, but almost always link to good reads.
- @TheFakeJoeBiden – need I say more? Also see @FakeHowardDean.
- @RyanNewYork and @DavidBadash tweet extensively about issues affecting the GLBT community, among other things.
- You can’t speak about @Shoq without speaking about @Cody_K, another prolific tweeter on the left who, along with @Shoq, recently helped to take down a rightist twitterbomb by counter-bombing with positive input about Obama and Healthcare Reform.
- @Buzzflash is the twitter home of BuzzFlash!, the progressive newswire. Always interesting to read. They also do guerrilla tweet-marketing, promoting their #turnoffFOX campaign to get people to turn off FOX News whenever they see it.
- @RudePundit, while he may not always use the proper hashtags, has a thoroughly entertaining twitterfeed, with tweets such as “Best anti-Glenn Beck line I’ve heard lately: ‘He’s a demonstration of what happens in late stage syphilis.'”
- @RayBeckerman may not have the most riveting tweets, but his dedication shows through to all his 7200 followers, and he is a good resource for green tweets.
- @Proudlib is exactly what he says, a proud liberal whose rants pull no punches.
- @HuffPo is the twitter home of the Huffington Post, which, while it will bombard you with a daily deluge of tweets if you follow them (I’ve had to unfollow a few times), never disappoints with interesting information.
- @Markos is the famous Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos.com.
And don’t forget, all of your favorite reporters are also on Twitter.
Politicking in 140 characters or less.
UPDATE:
Apparently, I had mistakenly included @NaiveAbroad on the previous list. Notes from @Shoq and @cody_k as well as @mkganda have been taken into consideration and acted upon. Perhaps he’ll go into the other politweet blog.
And here are some other #p2 tweets you might want to follow in the near future:
- @Karoli is a tweeter I should not have missed the first time. While @Karoli’s twitterfeed is not necessarily entertaining like @Shoq, it is definitely packed with information (even it is heavy on the @replies).
- @KagroX is a #p2 tweeter with a thoroughly interesting twitterfeed, which only is logical, considering he is an editor for the illustrious DailyKos.com
- @GottaLaff is a tweep I was turned on to by @CodyK. Thoroughly interesting, though also heavy on the @replies and light on the retweets.
- I must admit that I was remiss in not mentioning @PourMeCoffee. While lacking in hashtags, the feed is full of quips and wit: “Joe Lieberman will french kiss you on a rooftop with Dave Matthews mixtape playing for your vote. Keep the line moving.”
- The tweet “Lady crying ‘I want my country back’ was probably having Hee-Haw cancellation flashbacks.” is probably reason enough for any progressive to follow @OTooleFan. But the feed has over 4600 more reasons like this one.
- And, finally, @OWillis is probably the most glaring omission. His feed is almost exclusively chock-full of facts and links, and additions — such as interesting facts one may not have known about Kirk Cameron.
Again, thanks to @Shoq, @Cody_K, and @blogdiva for the additions.
TWILFBlog! 