The first presidential debate in 2012 took place between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama at the University of Denver. The second debate took place that same day on Twitter between their supporters.
The Oct. 3 debate generated a record-setting 10.3 million tweets of jokes, analysis, quotes and observations, according to Twitter. Before the event had even begun, its Twitter chatter dwarfed that of all the 2008 presidential debates combined.
After the election, Obama adviser David Axelrod reflected on the influence of the social media platform in a paper published by CNN journalist Peter Hamby for the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
“These tweets tend to frame how people are reading this and how they are evaluating what they are seeing,” Axelrod said. “Twitter was a big player in the debates. Twitter is a powerful force.”
It is likely that the 2016 presidential election will surpass even 2012 in social media engagement and its influence on the election. What isn’t known is whether Hillary Clinton, who last ran for president in 2008, will be ready to face that monumental shift.
Asked about Clinton’s social media strategy, spokesman Nick Merrill responded with a joke alluding to Twitter’s limitations. “Much of our strategy is based on speaking only in 140 characters, so with that in mind I’d make 3 points about our Twitter approach. First, we” Merrill emailed, purposefully cutting off his comment mid-sentence.
Recently, Clinton has established an impressive presence on Twitter, thanks in large part to the work of her director of digital strategy, Katie Dowd. Although Clinton’s account has only published about 100 tweets, she has already amassed more than 2.1 million followers.
But the live-tweeting, free-wheeling social media dynamic of a presidential campaign — with reporters constantly plugged into Twitter and Instagram — is an entirely different beast than the controlled messaging of a candidate’s official Twitter account, and it’s not clear whether it will mesh with the Clintons’ more conservative campaign style.
The Clintons and their aides are notoriously suspicious of the press. During the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York last month, one reporter wrote that she was escorted to the bathroom by a CGI press aide who waited outside the stall to make sure she didn’t leave.
The urge to exert control over reporters and the campaign narrative is at odds with the style of Twitter and the Internet, where campaigns now unfold.
In 2012, that dynamic clashed with Mitt Romney’s stiff, awkward personality. When he committed a gaffe on the campaign trail, as he often did, the press rushed to tweet it. Romney’s campaign often did not respond — and the candidate ended up as the butt of a joke, not a party to it.
“For Mitt it was hard, because if you hold tight, it makes it really hard if you make a mistake,” said Zac Moffatt, who directed the Romney campaign’s digital strategy.
The counterexample: Sen. Marco Rubio’s response after he conspicuously gulped a bottle of water during his response to the president’s State of the Union address in 2013. Rather than ignore the incident, Rubio owned it — joking about it at every juncture, tweeting photos with water bottles, and even selling branded water bottles to raise money.
“The Internet is much more forgiving if you acknowledge it than if you just put your head down, which is why Hillary’s campaign might have trouble,” Moffatt said. “She’s a different generation, and it’s not instinctive for her.”
Seth Bringman, a spokesman for the pro-Clinton group Ready For Hillary, disagreed, and rattled off a list of Clinton’s recent social media triumphs, including a “pretty epic” selfie with the actress Meryl Streep.
“Hillary has a brand like no one else, and she has consistently captivated the political universe in 140 characters or less,” Bringman said.
Clinton’s own Internet influence and celebrity is not in dispute. In 2012, a Tumblr page called Texts From Hillary captured the Internet’s imagination as it turned a photo of Clinton wearing sunglasses and texting into a meme.
Ultimately, Clinton invited the site’s founders, Stacy Lambe and Adam Smith, to meet with her at the State Department. She laughed about her favorite post, and her staff submitted one of its own.
“Going forward, that’s the kind of thing she should do more of,” Smith said. “On social media, being authentic is really important and being in on things, saying, ‘I get this joke.’ “
“I think it’s hard for any politician to come across on social as authentic,” Smith added. “She will have to work harder than some.”
