Seems like presumptive Republican Party presidential nominee Willard M. Romney has a ways to go to catch up with incumbent Barack H. Obama in terms of a social media presence, according to Investors.com. Mr. Romney allegedly has 251,000 followers on the micro-blog platform, Twitter. On the social networking behemoth, Facebook, Mr. Romney has 1.6 million “friends”.

Mr. Obama is doing better on both platforms. Mr. Obama has allegedly 14.6 million disciples on Twitter while his Facebook acquaintances number approximately 26 million.

It’s not surprising that Mr. Obama would have a commanding lead in the social media world. He has shown his preference for connectivity via technology ever since entering the White House and making arrangements for a special Blackberry that would allow him to stay connected while keeping people with ill will at bay.

Also given Mr. Obama’s relative youth and being a member of a minority demographic that makes disproportionate use of cellphones and Twitter, not only should we find Mr. Obama to be a proponent of social media use, but we should also expect him to exploit it to its fullest.

It’s not to say that Mittens can’t catch up. At this juncture it’s about how you leverage those social media resources versus how many Twitter followers are making you feel like Jesus.

I’m uncomfortable with granting security clearances for national security information to civilians in the private sector. Under the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2012, it appears that individuals employed with private companies or other private entities may get clearances as part of the act of exchanging information between the federal government and the private sector.

Its one thing if a cyber threat is detected by a private entity first and they pass that information on to the feds. They’ve already seen it; it was probably an attack on the private entity; so naturally they are familiar with the contents of the attack.

If it’s the other way around, then the government should not share anything outside of information specific to a private entity that may have additional information or is a target of an attack.
The problem here is that the White House and the Congress did not work together on this. If the Congress felt this additional national security protection was needed, why not work with the branch that would be responsible for carrying out national security.

I hate being cynical, but why pass a bill with privacy flaws unless the GOP is trying to create another political football for the summer and fall for the parties to kick around.

The two-party silly season is upon us…

We are in the silly season of American politics. The presumptive nominee for the Republican nomination, former Massachusetts Governor Willard Romney may be facing incumbent President Barack Obama in the November general election. Mr. Romney comes from the tech-prevalent state of Massachusetts, yet has failed to leverage in his campaign any experience he has with the benefits of technology in his home state.

It’s a missed opportunity. According to the CTIA, wireless data traffic has increased 123% over last year. In 2010 there were 62 million mobile-to-mobile devices worldwide. By 2020, that number, according to data cited by CTIA, is expected to top 16 billion.

CTIA also addressed the economy, concluding that for every dollar invested in wireless broadband, $7-$10 dollars would be added to our gross domestic product. Along with growth in GDP would come an additional 771,000 jobs added for the purpose of deploying 4G networks. These jobs would pay on average 50% more than jobs in other production industries.

Talking economic growth without mentioning the nation’s biggest influence on economic growth is like bringing a gun to a gun fight without any bullets.

Interesting tid bit in the digital advocacy realm. Of the six remaining GOP hopefuls, three appear to be actively recruiting volunteers for their social media campaigns. The three are Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry.

Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman in particular are seeking out bloggers for their campaigns while Newt Gingrich is asking in general whether volunteers would like to use social media to promote him.

Jon Huntsman refers to his blogging posse as Hbloggers while Rick Perry offers a colorful array of buttons that bloggers can add to their websites. It reminds me of Brannif Airways with their multi-colored airplanes. We all remember what happenned to Brannif.

More importantly this is an example of how important broadband in particular and the Internet in general is when it comes
to political efficacy and involvement. More opportunities are being made available to provide indviduals greater participation in the political process.