Hashtag Warfare

If politics is war, then Twitter is the neutron bomb. Politicians are engaging in hashtag warfare to stake out positions and target opponents without ever talking to a reporter or entering a TV studio.

You know you have a powerful weapon, says The Washington Post, when the President of the United States incorporates hashtags into his speeches, as he did last week — #dontdoublemyrate — in pressuring the GOP-led House to block an increase in student loan interest rates. After whipping up a student crowd in Chapel Hill that chanted the hashtag, there were almost instantaneously 20,000 tweets with the hashtag. 

Within 45 minutes, House Speaker John Boehner responded, using the hashtag, blaming Democrats for the student loan rate increase. Conservative groups seized on the hashtag to rip Obama over gas prices and lingering high unemployment rates, a risk you run in hashtag warfare.

Ann Romney chose Twitter to respond to criticism about her being a stay-at-home mom. Her tweet — "I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work." — reframed the conversation in thousands of retweets. Critics changed the subject.

Twitter-bombing isn't just an American political phenomenon. It played a huge role in the Arab Spring upheavals. Reportedly the new president of Chile instructed his cabinet ministers to tweet to build grassroots support for his new policies.

Facebook has tons more users, but Twitter has become the go-to place to find out the latest news. That is just the kind of battlefront that attracts political operatives. Shots fired on Twitter wind up ricocheting on Facebook and, ultimately, populate searches on Google.

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From Bugaboo to Booboo

Calling someone elitist and out of touch because they attended Harvard isn't a new strategy. However, it is a novel argument when made by a candidate who spent even more time at Harvard, sent three children there, and donated thousands of dollars to the university.

And his Boston campaign headquarters is just across the river from Harvard.

In politics, you have to know how to deliver a zinger. But it's usually a good idea to taser your opponent, not yourself.

Basking in the trifecta of victories in this week's GOP presidential primaries, frontrunner Mitt Romney turned his guns on President Obama, saying he "spent too much time at Harvard," leaving him out of touch with mainstream America.

Obama did spend three years at Harvard, earning his law degree and working on the Harvard Law Review. It turns out Romney attended Harvard for four years, earning a law degree and a masters in business administration.

In addition to the math problem, Obama made it to Harvard from fairly humble circumstances, while Romney got there from a family whose dad was president of American Motors and governor of Michigan. 

The "silver spoon" characterization fits Romney more than Obama, which left political pundits scratching their heads on Romney's latest ricochet bullet.

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Stormin' Norman to Retire

Norm Dicks, who played guard for the University of Washington football team, but quarterbacked the state's congressional delegation, announced he won't seek re-election after serving 18 terms in the U.S. House. He is 71.

Dicks, like his mentor and former boss, Senator Warren Magnuson, has been a stalwart on the House Appropriations Committee, bringing home largesse to Washington. A native of Bremerton, Dicks protected his home state defense establishment, most recently helping secure a billion-dollar Boeing Air Force refueling tanker contract. The Bremerton Naval Base couldn't have had a more loyal, capable or unabashed defender.

But he also pressed for money to clean Puget Sound and Hood Canal, to restore the spotted owl and remove dams on the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula to return salmon runs.

"It's hard to quit. I love this job," Dicks told reporters as he announced his decision. "I learned from the greatest two senators — Magnuson and Senator Henry Jackson."

Senator Patty Murray, who handles spending issues on Washington's behalf in the Senate, called Dicks "a true Washington State institution. More than that, he is my mentor, my friend, my advisor, my teammate and my brother. He is our state's quarterback here in Congress. I can't imagine our delegation without him."

Few others can, either. Dicks was elected to Congress in 1976. He worked the previous eight years in Washington, D.C. for Magnuson, a legendary figure known for his appropriations policy of getting something for Washington for everything he gave to another state. One admirer said Magnuson was the "lion of the Senate" and Dicks became the "lion of the House."

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The Tangled Tale of Personal Privacy

Two stories on the same day in The Washington Post show the extreme pressure points on maintaining personal privacy. 

One describes U.S. government efforts to protect against potentially devastating international cyber attacks; the other points out user frustration with privacy policies by digital giants such as Google.

A story headlined, "White House, NSA weigh cybersecurity, personal privacy," talks about legislation to allow continuous, routine surveillance of civilian Internet activity.

Users won’t be able to opt out. If they don’t like the change, Google has said, they can avoid signing into their accounts or stop using Google products altogether, 

That’s easier said than done, experts say in the other Post story noted. For more than 350 million people using Gmail around the world, moving to a new e-mail program is perhaps more inconvenient than changing a mailing address or a bank account.

"Google unified privacy settings unsettle users" traces the concerns of users worried about the accumulation of personal data based on their searches, email content and downloaded videos,' the article says.

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Trump Out, But Not Forgotten

Donald Trump's whirlwind presidential bid is now history, but his short-lived, volatile candidacy may be illuminating to his GOP colleagues. Even though he will be reduced in history as a footnote to this election, Trump soared in the polls with his in-your-face political style, reflecting a Republican yearning for someone to challenge President Obama toe to toe.

Washington Post political columnist Chris Cillizza described Trump's Icarus-like rise and fall as a cautionary tale for 2012 GOP contenders. He quotes senior Republican strategist Scott Reed as saying, "Donald Trump was an anti-establishment figure who demonstrated the importance of taking the debate right to Obama frontally and hard, which the eventual GOP nominee must do daily to win."

Rob Stutzman, a California GOp strategist, echoes the point. "He had the appeal of a candidate who would brawl with Obama on behalf of the rank and file and create contrast."

The lesson from Trump may be a hard pill to swallow for remaining candidates, Cillizza suggests. "Any sign of agreement — or even willingness to think about agreeing — with the President is viewed as capitulation within some non-insignificant element of the Republican party, many of whom identify closely with the tea party movement."

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