US News

Romney Was Considering Paul Ryan in July, And Other Secrets Ryan’s Twitter Feed Tells Us

August 13, 2012 by Elizabeth Flock

By 10 a.m. Saturday, the day Romney announced Ryan as the official VP pick aboard the USS Wisconsin, the PaulRyanVP Twitter account garnered more than 150,000 mentions on Twitter—three times more than Romney’s best day ever, according to Zach Green, who runs 140elect.com, a site that monitors political social media activity.

The mentions serve as another indicator the young congressman could outshine Romney in the months to come.

But so far, Ryan’s account has tweeted only four very milque-toast tweets, two of which are identical, which Green says suggests a staffer is running the account instead of Ryan.

Green also noticed that of the 76 accounts Ryan is following, 56 are white men, 10 are white women, one is a woman of color (Nikki Haley), and 10 are corporations or PACs. “Nobody else. Apt metaphor,” Green wrote on Saturday.

This Is The Face Of Mitt Romney’s Fake Twitter Followers

July 25, 2012 by Elizabeth Flock

These accounts were one of thousands to follow Romney over the weekend, when the candidate gained Twitter followers in two giant waves at a faster rate than he ever had before. This change was noticed by Zach Green of 140elect.com, which tracks Twitter trends surrounding the 2012 presidential election.

Green reported that after Romney’s account gained only 3-4,000 new followers per day over the past month, it quite suddenly picked up 23,926 new followers on Friday, 93,054 on Saturday and 25,432 on Sunday.

Romney’s account wasn’t getting an equivalent increase in mentions, however, suggesting the Twitter followers were not coming in organically.

Soon after Green’s report, fingers were pointed at the Romney campaign, suggesting it may have bought the followers to catch up to President Obama’s giant social footprint. A hashtag making fun of Romney, #MoreFakeMitt, soon began trending on Twitter.