Social media and politics make strange bedfellows

[Renew Deal]

It's become like shaking hands, kissing babies, and promising to cut taxes while creating jobs: Every candidate running for elected office apparently feels compelled to embrace social media. Now we've got two Facebook pages in every pot and a tweet every 15 minutes.
<snip>

Few gaffes can top the heights achieved by Sarah Pompei, a volunteer working for Meg Whitman's gubernatorial campaign in California. In a tweet designed to highlight Whitman's tough stand on crime, Pompei meant to link to a story about San Diego County Sheriff's Department endorsing the former eBay CEO. But she made a politically fatal typo in pasting that bit.ly link to her tweet, leaving off the final letter. Instead, Whitman supporters enjoyed a video of South Korean bass player Hyunmo Kim wearing a pink tutu and rocking out to a Japanese pop tune. That video has now been viewed more than a million times, presumably not only by people curious about Whitman's stand on crime. (Or perhaps Whitman was trying to say cross-dressing bassists should be doing hard time. I could get behind that one.)

According to his MySpace page, Hyunmo Kim "hopes to be the world's greatest stupid idiot bass player." It's unclear whether Pompei or Whitman have similar ambitions in the political sphere.

But Whitman is hardly the only big name pol caught in a Twitter trap. Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin got snared when she used Twitter to urge Pennsylvanians to vote for Republican senatorial candidate John Raese. The problem? Raese is running for Senate in West Virginia, where Democrats have been dogging him with questions about his residency. Palin -- or whoever was driving her Twitter account at the time -- caught the error and quickly corrected it, but not before sharp-eyed reporters at CNN took notice.
<snip>

Some more at: http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/social-media-and-politics-make-strange-bedfellows-595