We are in the middle of the silly season and social networking sites will be abuzz this week as the Democratic Party kicks off its national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s a good time to have a broadband connection as the activity on Twitter showed last week during the Republican Party’s convention in Tampa, Florida. Whether you support the GOP or not, if you are an avid political geek as yours truly, you were definitely getting in your two cents on how well the Republicans were making their case for whether they should be allowed four years in the White House.

Pew Research recently released an assessment of how all this tweeting and Facebook posting is impacting political discourse in America. Overall, the report found that postings to social networking sites are having some impact on political views, especially among people who identify themselves as Democrats or liberals. According to Pew Research, 24% of liberal social network site users and 18% of moderate social network site users said that use of social network sites have prompted them to change their political views. Only 11% of conservatives who use social network sites are prompted to change their views as a result of interacting online.

In addition, 25% of social network users have become more active as a result of using social network sites. Sixteen percent of social network site users have changed their political views as a result of interacting on the sites. Nine percent of social network site users took the opposite turn and became less engaged with political discussion as a result of postings online.

Oh well. Happy tweeting and see you tonight online at least.

Today Federal Communications Commission member Jessica Rosenworcel joined the Twitter ranks, launching her Twitter account much to my delight. I was so elated I even sent a quick hello to welcome her to the platform. Twitter can provide a public servant a quick way to get their messages out to the public. Just ask Mayor Corey Booker of Newark about how effective Twitter is.

While I don’t expect Ms. Rosenworcel to go digging snow on the streets of Washington or running into burning houses to save kittens, I look forward to what I call political heroism as she provides us with a little more transparency and insight on policymaking at the FCC.

Now it’s time to get the rest of the commissioners on board. Maybe they will follow their leader, Chairman Genachowski once he gets a Twitter handle. If he’s scratching his head about an appropriate name for his account, I came up with a couple.

Mr. Genachowski could try TheOriginalGFCC or TheGmanFCC. Something funky and outside the box would make interacting with the commish pretty cool. You can have fun with it, Mr. Genachowski. The public will also appreciate a tweet every now and then explaining what the FCC is all about and how specific initiatives are impacting them.

Anyway, see you in the Twittersphere…

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 replaying a PBS NewsHour video where Howard Kurtz of CNN’s Reliable Sources and Lauren Ashburn of The Daily Download are discussing political warfare in cyberspace. Check out the video here. I guess we can think of social media as behind the lines guerilla warfare with the advertising and debates we see on television as the traditional front lines.

I love it. One of the great things about wireless mobile access to broadband is the access to the political discussion going on minute-by-minute. I think Ms. Ashburn put well when she says it’s almost like debating. I would say real debating; unbridled, unscripted, unregulated.

Watch those hashtags!

CNBC’s Julia Bornstein brings her insights to whether Google is favoring its Google + social network when consumers search the web for “@usernames”. Twitter, according to Ms. Bornstein, argues that Google suppresses the “@” sign during a consumer search, and instead sends the consumer to one of its Google search options.

The antitrust question maybe, is Google using its dominance in search to elevate its options over Twitter’s.

On the surface it seems a big what to do about nothing. If I’m that hard up to do a search for someone’s Twitter handle, I’d go to Twitter and do the search. Consumers have that option if they have problems with Google.

Hopefully the FTC or the Justice Department will find that they have other things to do.