Cooper

Senator Lamar Alexander

Personally, I don’t view this as a list that is desirable to be on.  But, HotAir.com has put together a list of representatives that have chosen to be MIA from the Health Care Town Halls.  Notable on this list are John Tanner and Jim Cooper.  Personally, I think it is embarrassing that these representatives have chosen to duck accountability.  It shows a flagrant amount of disrespect for constituents. 

Also notable… Lamar chose to have a “telephone townhall”.  Wow, way to bend over backwards for your constituents.  Alexander further admonished the health care protestors to act with “good manners”.  So, not only is he refusing to meet with them, he is recommending etiquette for them.  Thanks, dad!

Lamar’s support of Sotomayor and now this tell me that he is not voting, nor thinking, as a committed conservative anymore.  On the other hand, kudos to Marsha Blackburn for going above and beyond and having multiple town halls and actually listening to the people she has been elected to represent. 

I just continue to marvel at how there is now an “arms race” to get the most friends on Facebook or MySpace for political campaigns.  It really is an amazing shift.   These days, it seems like every time I look at news and articles, there is a discussion of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or some other form of social media.  At the same time, the idea of Lamar Alexander ever doing anything on Facebook just makes me laugh. No offense. But, I can’t see Lamar “poking” people or “throwing a cow at them”. (If you do not know what I am talking about, you must go back 3 spaces to Facebook 101.) But, then, again, I may underestimate him.

Right now, Facebook and MySpace are both en vogue (even though MySpace has several times the traffic of Facebook). But, I think that in the near future, other – less prominent – social media will become more important. Take, for example, Twitter. I admit that I had a very negative view of Twitter… and I am still not completely sold on it. But, I can see where campaigns can benefit from having all of their supporters know where a candidate is at all times. A campaign may not want to be sending out a blog post every few minutes of the day… but, you can commit yourself to sending a quick Twitter line if you are on the road with the candidate – once an hour.

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