Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin Win the Twitter-lection

As various political figures posture and prepare for the 2012 Republican Presidential primary, one “winner” we can announce already is ... social media.

Most notably, Sarah Palin has turned Facebook into a political tool du jour. She doesn’t blog. She doesn’t need to. She Facebooks.

But Palin’s not alone in embracing new media for political gain. Newt Gingrich is on Twitter. And Mitt Romney is too.

But what does all this live, spontaneous, real-time interaction with political hopefuls mean for us, the voting public?

It means we have an opportunity to perform our duty as faithful citizens even more thoroughly. Even Catholics who don’t consider themselves “political junkies”—ones who won’t even think about their primary vote until a day or so before the election—have no excuse for not knowing the facts about where each candidate stands on the issues.

I found it interesting to see a Slate run-down of potential Republican candidates who are “winning” the battle for friends and followers on Twitter:

Newt Gingrich: 1,308,757 followers, 1,925 tweets
Sarah Palin: 191,164 followers, 347 tweets
Mike Huckabee: 83,297 followers, 1,188 tweets
Tim Pawlenty: 16,464 followers, 235 tweets
Mitt Romney: 14,347 followers, 241 tweets
Haley Barbour: 6,357 followers, 264 tweets
Mitch Daniels: 3,451 followers, 457 tweets

If you are on Twitter too, why not send some of these Presidential hopefuls a tweet or two?

Let them know that your Catholic conscience will be guiding you at the polls, especially with regard to life issues. Ask them how they plan to earn your vote.