McCain: Twitter is 'a phenomenal way of communicating'
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. John McCain may have lost the last presidential election but online the Arizona Republican has something the White House doesn’t have – more followers on the popular social networking site Twitter than the Obama administration’s official Twitter account.
Watch: McCain raves about Twitter
McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) has slightly more than 1.1 million Twitter followers while the White House account (@whitehouse) has approximately 844,000.
McCain, who was not known as a technophile during the 2008 presidential race, says he is fond of the popular service that allows users to broadcast 140-character messages.
“It is a phenomenal way of communicating,” McCain told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.
McCain said he was “flooded with responses,” after he recently sent a tweet about use of steroids by a Major League baseball player. “It’s a great, great vehicle for communication.”
Overall though, the Arizona Republican has a ways to go to catch up with his former rival on Twitter.
The Twitter account created by the Obama presidential campaign (@BarackObama) currently has more than 1.8 million followers – meaning the two Obama-related accounts combined have more than double the followers of McCain.
And while there’s presumably a significant overlap between followers of both the original Obama campaign account and the newer, official White House account, apparently not all of Obama’s early Twitter followers have made the switch. So Obama is working hard to boost the White House’s Twitter following. During the last “Follow Friday,” a weekly event where Twitter users recommend which users to follow, Obama’s original campaign account suggested that its 1.8 million followers also follow the official White House Twitter account.
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McCain's a sore loser and I don't care what he thinks or does. He's totally out of touch with the average guy, Twitter or not! Arizona, please vote this dinosaur out!
Can someone tell me why I should care?
I'm an independent voter and hate to see the venom in some of the post, but I expect I should expect it when the ultra rightwing nuts in the Republican Party seem to run it. You would think that the Republicans would want my vote and would Tweet something other than the Limbo/Hannity/Savage/Coulter/Birthers/Beck/Fox"News"/WSJ line. Maybe McCain can clean it up! Give him a break.
Its so sad the media decided after seeing Gov. Palin's convention speech, that they would destroy her. They continue to this day. This was never about Sarah. It prevented a true American hero from his last mission. That of Commander in Chief.
I stopped watching CNN. It's become Fox light.
ROFL – This is an accomplishment???
The next to last thing I need in my life is Tweets from McCain. (The last is Tweets from Obama...or any of the loony Dems!)
Uh, I think whoever is tweeting in the White House is an aide, not the president. There is a huge difference. Senator McCain has time to do this, the president does not.
Grow up people. My twitter following is bigger than yours? When I want to hear what the president has to say, I don't have to tweet. He's on every major news outlet.
Do the topics get more complex, CNN or are you having a slow day?
twitter should work fine for the republicans... everything they stand for can be summed up in a single "tweet"
Now, during the campaign we heard all about how McCain couldn't use a computer, not because he couldn't be bothered to learn how, but because his war wounds made it physically impossible – apparently for voice recognition software too - but now he has had a miraculous recovery and has no problem at all twittering?
So, which is the lie?