Found this great article written by Mark McKinnon about twitter. Figured I’d pass it along.

The greatest impact the Internet has had on politics is democratization. And nowhere is this trend more evident than in the current use of microblogs like Twitter.

The political conversation in the 2008 presidential election is driven largely by blogs and microblogs. Online democratization has blown to bits and bytes the command-and-control approach that campaigns used to take to communication. Mainstream media reporters now blog throughout the day in an effort to compete with the constant, virtual news cycle.

Despite the information clutter, blogs are bringing new life into the political process. Bloggers are looking for new ideas, fed through their personal lens, to produce the original thought that will impress their network of supporters. This is forcing people to think deeply about politics in order to formulate their own opinions and share their thoughts with others. They are talking about politics; they are getting involved. Across the country, records are being set everywhere for participation in the electoral process.

Twitter is filling an important gap in the digital democracy — a gap that most did not even know was there. If blogs are the inner monologues that occur after we have had a chance to sit down and think, then Twitter is the internal (albeit sometimes random) thoughts that most of us have all day long. Twitter allows us to tap into the collective brain; there is something very fascinating but strangely voyeuristic about this.

People are listening to and analyzing every single word that John McCain and Barack Obama say, so the campaigns don’t necessarily need another channel for communicating to the public. But people are also paying attention to which campaigns and politicians are actually listening to the people as well, and it may be that the true value of Twitter for political campaigns is in listening more than talking. Twitter is more than just a large, unorganized focus group; it is a link to real-time constituent consciousness.

As someone who consults on the power of concise and well thought-out messages, I have a deep appreciation for the 140-character limit of Twitter. If you give a candidate two minutes to say something, he will take three. Limits force message discipline. At the same time, polished messages sound fake on Twitter. This is a delicate balancing act the campaigns must figure out, something they have not done — yet.

Twitter may eventually have a bigger effect on the political landscape than blogging. The possibilities are limitless, and the creative applications are just starting to be realized. The second presidential debate may have been a town-hall format, but the real town hall was on Twitter’s Election 2008 page. (See video of the page in action.)

For anybody who had his or her computer open to this page while watching the debate, it would have been hard not to notice the stark contrast between the stoic live audience and the very lively online audience. It was not as dramatic a shift as the first televised debates almost 50 years ago between Kennedy and Nixon, but more subtly suggested the game has changed.

It’s hard to tell where this is all headed and just what the ultimate consequences may be to the Internet’s role in politics. Like democracy, it can be pretty messy and unpredictable. But we embrace the Internet’s role just as we do democracy, because, in the end, our country was built on the notion of ultimately trusting the power, the will, and the good intention of the people.

— Mark McKinnon has worked for both Democratic and Republican political campaigns, including Texas Governors Mark White, Ann Richards, and George Bush, Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, and, in 2006, Senator John McCain’s candidacy for President. He is a co-chairman of Arts+Labs and serves on the board of the Lance Armstrong Foundation

Actual Article Here

Much Love Mark, You Rock. @tomserres