Romney debate win is a win for social content

A Romney debate win in the first Presidential debate was as improbable as it was decisive. Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, a vacillator or non-conformist – I propose that we all have reason to celebrate.

We now have something slightly more substantive to talk about.

Romney debate win is bigger news than Obama’s breast obsession

Earlier in the year, I had an impression that following social media this election cycle would be innovation and instructive. It was supposed to be game changing and revolutionary. I may have been slightly to completely naive.

Consider the headlines on my Google Alerts immediately prior to the Presidential debates:

Apparently Barack Obama likes to see tits on twitter every day

Official Obama account caught following explicit boob site again

Barack Obama is following a porn feed

Each headline intimates that Barack Obama manually runs through his Twitter followers deciding who to follow based upon the degree that they titillate him. And of course this is a variation on a daily theme. Take some ancillary aspect of a candidate’s social media out of context and write about it. Fake Twitter followers, how much “engagement” is happening on candidates Facebook sites (advocates for both candidates post on each other’s pages), plagiarism of a fundraising email, spelling and grammatical errors…. Posts about nothing that would make Jerry Seinfeld proud.

The Mitt Romney debate win changes that. Whether you like the guy or not, I have to imagine that the vast majority of people would rather talk about something substantive happening in the actual campaign than what happens when you automate following on your Twitter account (breasts sometimes are collateral damage).

Somebody is going to lose, but not me

I understand that in November slightly less than half of Americans will be disappointed that their candidate didn’t win and I don’t want to be dismissive of people’s deep seeded desire to have their preferred panderer win. And don’t get me wrong, as an adopted Ohioan I cannot wait for 2016 when Presidential candidates return to show their concern for the everyman.

I’m really hopeful that the Romney debate win is a game changer for web content. Instead of Obama’s proclivity for the breast, maybe we have an intelligent discourse about whether Mitt Romney is waging war against Big Bird.

In my book. that’s change you can believe in. Or in the words of Bill Murray in the film What About Bob: “baby steps.”

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Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.