How To Split An Atom

I normally don’t do two part columns (at least I haven’t thus far), but something happened today that made a follow-up article necessary.

You see, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi – D) adjourned for a 5 week recess, however, House Republicans decided to continue the debate, without Democrats even being present.

John Culberson

Rep. John Culberson has been twittering the event (as is Rep. Pete Hoekstra), as well as utilizing qik to post video about the goings on in the House. The issue at hand, the United States’ energy policy. You see, House Republicans wanted to vote on the issue of opening up the continental shelf to oil companies in what they are referring to as the “drill here, drill now” plan to help bring down energy prices, and of course, the adjournment prior to a vote has them on their high horse.

Now, this is normally (normally meaning if I was writing this for my own blog, Devilinthedetails, yeah, shameless plug) where I would spend the next couple of paragraphs discussing how the Republican’s are loony (not because I am a democrat, but because drilling in the continental shelf wouldn’t do anything to gas prices for several years) and how this is all a huge publicity stunt (which it is). But I won’t, this isn’t a political blog, I’ll save my own ranting for my own site.

What I will talk about is what I think about the use of social media tools to bring this to the attention of the American people. While I may not agree with Rep. Culberson’s view points most of the time (if not all the time), I applaud his use of the tools that are available to connect with his constituency. Using twitter and qik (and whatever socmed tools he may use) to give us a window into Washington is a progressive idea (and one I wouldn’t have expected from a Republican quite honestly). And while my last column criticized his hyperbole about Congressional Leaders trying to take them away from him, this column does the opposite, funny how things change week to week.

I am not from Texas, I am not a constituent of John Culberson (my Representative is Democrat Dave Loebsack), nor would I most likely vote for a man with Rep. Culberson’s track record on protecting civil liberties, personal privacy, etc… However, I must applaud him for adopting the tools that he has, and shedding a little more light on Washington through some newly opened windows (however stained those windows may be by his own political views). While his cries of oppression from the last two weeks may seem ironic given his voting record, his adoption of new media is ahead of the curve, and for that I applaud him.

Now, if only we could get a bunch of Democrats to use the tools we could have a twitter debate (a real one anyways), or maybe even an oovoo debate, or maybe, just maybe, both sides of the argument, for once. Ehh, who am I kidding, Obama is already the most popular person on Twitter (with nearly 55,000 followers). His twitter stream is strictly campaign related, what he’s doing, where he’s going, blah blah blah… McCain’s twitter stream is the same, boring information about being wherever he happens to be. Rep. Culberson, at this point at least, is our only real option for a look into the goings on in the House.

So, does the adoption of at least a couple of these tools by a member of Congress (who isn’t missing votes for his Presidential campaign) mean anything? Does it have enough impact to say that it is worthwhile? Does it actually give us window into our government? Or, as I argued previously, is it just another way for politicians to spread their own personal opinions (regardless of whether or not it matches the views of their constituency?

Greg Hollingsworth is a marketer and blogger who also writes about politics on Devil’s In The Details.

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