SiliconBeat

So now we know: The Great Obama Twitter Revolution was an illusion.

At the moment when Obama needs his vast social media army to support him in the debate over health care reform, they are nowhere to be found. No spontaneous meetups. No big Facebook followings. Hardly a tweet on Twitter.

Instead, the dominant images of the health care debate are people shouting down Congressmen at town hall meetings. It’s talk show hosts on cable news channels blustering about the evils of socialized medicine. And it’s radio show hosts pushing the usual propaganda.

Obama has lost control of the debate. And the fight will be soon be lost if the trajectory of the shouting match doesn’t change.

This may be the most critical policy moment of Obama’s presidency. And Obama’s Twitter posse is sitting it out.

What are they waiting for?

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At the Web 2.0 Summit last week, the most timely panel may have been “The Web and Politics.” Moderated by John Heilemann of New York Magazine, the panel discussion included Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post; Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco; and Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean and John Edwards.

The discussion covered the role that social networks and the Web played in the victory by Barack Obama and whether that’s permanently changed how elections will be run. The group also discussed how this election signaled a change in the way the press covers campaigns, how voters get their information, and what that means going forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that John McCain is back on board for the debate tonight, it’s time to start making plans for watching. Some folks may gather with friends for debate parties, which is great.

But if you’re looking for alternative ways to gather with folks virtually, consider watching the debates at Current TV, either on your cable system or online here.

Current TV has teamed up with Twitter to create a stream of tweets that will appear on the screen throughout the debate. If you’re familiar with Twitter, all you need to do is include the #current hash tag in your tweet to get it into the Current TV stream.

During the conventions, I had Twitter running on my laptop and really enjoyed the interactivity and running commentary throughout the evening keynotes. Since real interactive TV appears to be years away, I found this to be a great substitute. So I’ll be watching tonight and posting my thoughts on Twitter. If you want me to see your tweets, also include @sjcobrien in your tweets.

It appears unlikely that we’ll get a full fledged debate focused on Science and Technology. That’s too bad. But fortunately, the folks behind Sciencedebate2008 have received responses from both major presidential campaigns to a list of 14 science questions. By way of background, Sciencedebate2008 sought to have a debate among candidates, first in the primaries, and then the general election, on science and technology issues.

Along the way, the group garnered support from hundreds of academic, industry and scientific leaders, both individuals and institutions. When it became clear that a debate was not in the cards, the group drew up the list of 14 questions from 3,400 that were submitted online. The questions cover climate change (both agree that exists and is problem); science education; global competitiveness; pandemics (Hell, Avian Flu); genetic research; and stem cells.

This last one represents perhaps the biggest contract between the two candidates, and that’s no surprise.

Of stem cell research, Obama writes:

“I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe that the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations. As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.”

And McCain writes:

“I oppose the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes and I voted to ban the practice of “fetal farming,” making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes.”

You can find the full list of questions and the candidates’ responses here.

Some other resources:

The McCain campaign technology policy is here.

Obama’s is here.

And if you’re really interested in this area, then reading techPresident is a must.