[Updated with Twitter Tutorial links at the end.]
Anyone else getting really tired of the leaks and trial balloons being floated by the White House and some dems to abandon the public option?
I love the work Jane Hamsher, nyceve, and slinkerwink are doing promoting health care reform with a strong public option, but I wonder if we might make an additional small effort. Just a little something to send a message to Obama and wavering dems that health reform without a public option would be a mistake and perceived as a giveaway to insurance companies and Big Pharma.
For those who are friends with @BarackObama and @whitehouse on Twitter, I propose sending direct messages to those accounts. For others, I propose sending @ mentions. Below the fold, I'll suggest a few tweets to use. Just copy and paste. Can you think of a variation on the theme? Please add it in the comments.
Don't have a Twitter account? Now's a good time to get one, and you'll be able to interact with the progressive community in a another way in real time.
Proposed Tweets (Just copy and paste)
1st tweet
@whitehouse "choice & competition" w/out #publicoption would be like Wall Street regulating itself under leadership of Bernie Madoff #p2
@barackobama "choice & competition" w/out #publicoption would be like Wall Street regulating itself under leadership of Bernie Madoff #p2
2nd tweet
@whitehouse "choice & competition" w/out #publicoption would be like lobbyist ethics reforms guided by Abramoff & Tom Delay #p2
@barackobama "choice & competition" w/out #publicoption would be like lobbyist ethics reforms guided by Abramoff & Tom Delay #p2
3rd tweet
@whitehouse #healthreform must not be toothless like financial reform appears to be. Source of declining poll #s for Dems, Obama #p2
@barackobama #healthreform must not be toothless like financial reform appears to be. Source of declining poll #s for Dems, Obama #p2
@SentatorReid #healthreform must not be toothless like financial reform appears to be. Source of declining poll #s for Dems, Obama #p2
generic tweet
Obama & Dems must embrace #healthcare as a right & not a privilege, as Kennedy fought for. Even moderate & conservadems #hcr09 #publicoption
Twitter dictionary & rules for those who haven't used it before.
- Tweets are limited to 140 characters, including spaces
- hashtags # - indicate subjects that may be searched on by others
- #p2 - allows progressives to find each other
- #hcr09 - health care reform 2009, also sometimes as #hcr
- #publicoption, #healthreform, #healthcare are additional popular tags with many followers
- Direct Messages (DM) are private messages that are only seen by the sender and recipient. To send a direct message, the person must be following you. To receive a direct message, you must be following the sender.
- @ Replies or mentions show up in your public timeline. Your followers and anyone who views your profile will be able to read @ replies or mentions you have written. People doing a search on your id will be able to read replies or mentions to or about you.
- RT - retweet. When you repeat what someone else tweeted, usually because you like what they said (though sometimes used for snark value - see @glennbeck if you're feeling adventurous and in the mood for paranoid stupidity. Credits original writer.
Additional people you might tweet:
Senator Harry Reid (NV) @SentatorReid
Senator Claire McCaskill (MO) @clairmc
Senator Robert Menendez (NJ) @SenatorMenendez
Senator Arlen Specter @SenArlenSpecter
Senator Mark Udall (CO) @MarkUdall
Senator Mark Warner (VA) @MarkWarner
House Democrats @HouseDemocrats
House Ways & Means Committee @WaysMeansCmte
House Education & Labor Committee Dems @edlabordems
The Hispanic Caucus @HispanicCaucus
Tweet Congress @tweetcongress
You can use Tweet Congress to see if your representative and senators are on Twitter.
The list above isn't meant to be exhaustive. These are a few representatives (or committees & groups) who have been active on Twitter. Though Senators McCaskill, Menendez, Specter, and Udall have all expressed support for a public option according to the whip count on Open Left, as has Senator Reid, the Senate in particular needs all the advocacy it can get to have a strong public option available on day one, without any trigger mechanisms to water it down. And I don't know about you, but for some reason, I just don't trust Senator Reid to push for strong legislation. I don't really know why I might be inclined to feel that way...
On the House side, it's probably best to check where your representative stands. This link from Firedoglake lists representatives and their contact phone numbers, along with their district, whether they are a member of the Progressive Caucus, an HCAN signatory, a cosponsor for HR767, and whether they have taken the pledge to reject a bill unless it contains a public option that is: available nationwide, on day one, and accountable to Congress and the voters.
I did notice Rep. Jared Polis (CO-02) is active on Twitter @JaredPolis, and hasn't committed to supporting the public option. Any other reps that you can think of that stand out? As with suggested tweets, if there are representatives or senators you know are active on twitter that you feel would be worth contacting, please give their Twitter info in comments.
I tweet as @forbodyandmind and @dreaminghope with some overlap. Feel free to follow one or both id's. And if you're interested in finding other progressives on Twitter, Tweet Progress is directory with over 3400 id's and growing.
Update: Twitter Tutorials
Learning Twitter - and the Golden Rules via Rightbrain Search - This was one of the first guides I used.
10 Twitter Tips for Professionals by Bill Sweetman
10 Twitter Tips for Professionals by Fabien Tiburce
What are Hashtags (#) via http://hashtags.org/...
Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They're like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.
Learn more about hashtags at the twitter fan wiki: Twitter Fan Wiki
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