Virginia Senate party switch derailed by Twitter

[Gravis Marketing]

http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/10/did-twitter-just-ruin-virginia-republican-plans/

Everyone raves about how microblogging service Twitter has become a source for citizen journalism; users don’t just break news, they inadvertently leak stories, such as Google’s development of offline Gmail. Looks like politicians aren’t immune to Twitter’s rumor-mongering lure either — Virginia House Delegate and State Republican Chairman Jeff Frederick tweeted some good news for his fellow party-members today. But his tweet may have actually stopped that news from coming to pass.

What the heck am I talking about? Earlier today, Frederick sent this message to his Twitter followers: “Big news coming out of Senate: Apparently one dem is either switching or leaving the dem caucus. Negotiations for power sharing underway.” That would have ended the Democrats’ majority in the Senate.

Except, whoops, it turns out the news was premature. State Senator Ralph Northam was planning to switch parties, but during a recess, “Senate Dems proceeded to pile on Northam and he caved,” according to a conservative political blog called Virginia Virtucon. The National Review adds that according to a source, the premature release of the information via Twitter killed the deal.

[Gravis Marketing]

Del. Frederick = Steve Bartman.

[Lіef]

Hahaha. Republicans are bad at technology.

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

     Serves him right for getting on the bandwagon with the latest fad.

[Landslide Lyndon]

[Senator Ben]

LOL.  The Virginia GOP really is struggling right now.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

     Serves him right for getting on the bandwagon with the latest fad.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  This.

[Senator Ben]

This is the same guy who was endorsed by the Washington Post for the Lt. Governor nomination.  Absurd.

[angryGreatness]

I'm guessing that Northam realized that he is going to lose the LG Nomination, and decided to take revenge on the Democratic party.

[Senator Ben]

I'm guessing that Northam realized that he is going to lose the LG Nomination, and decided to take revenge on the Democratic party.

The article was from 2009, actually.

[Former Moderate]

     Serves him right for getting on the bandwagon with the latest fad.

The instantaneous sharing of information via the Internet isn't a fad. It's a multibillion dollar industry that's going to change -- and has already been changing -- the face of politics forever.

[Joe Republic]

     Serves him right for getting on the bandwagon with the latest fad.

The instantaneous sharing of information via the Internet isn't a fad. It's a multibillion dollar industry that's going to change -- and has already been changing -- the face of politics forever.

... generally for the worse.

[True Federalist]

     Serves him right for getting on the bandwagon with the latest fad.

The instantaneous sharing of information via the Internet isn't a fad. It's a multibillion dollar industry that's going to change -- and has already been changing -- the face of politics forever.

That Twitter would not be another Myspace or AltaVista was not apparent in February 2009.  It was a rapidly growing Internet phenomenon with considerable potential to be a fad instead of the long-lasting part of the Internet universe that it has become.

[Former Moderate]

Motherf-er. Don't we have general rules of thumb around here for bumping super old threads for almost literally no reason?

[Senator Ben]

Considering he's endorsed by the Post to be the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor, a race he'll likely win, I found it relevant.