Then What Happened?

I had a Tweet ReTweeted on Twitter.

That happens from time to time. It’s always nice because it means someone felt what I wrote was worth sharing. But today was different. Today I was ReTweeted by President Barack Obama!

OK, I know. President Obama wasn’t sitting around the Oval Office before he had lunch with Mitt Romney just checking his Twitter feed. I know the President wasn’t searching to see how his #My2K hashtag was trending. I know it was his staff. But it was his staff, you know, President Barack Obama’s staff, that ReTweeted me! I took screenshots. Oh yes I did! Heck, they’re in contention to become our holiday cards!

#My2K is a hashtag created by the Obama administration that folks on Twitter can use to talk about the impact of the expiration of the middle class tax cuts. Here is how they posted it: “If Congress fails to act, the typical middle-class family will have about $2,000 less to spend or save next year.” Should you so desire, you can Tweet what that $2,000 means to you and what you do with the money, including #My2K in the Tweet.

So I Tweeted:
#My2k goes directly into the local economy: shopping at local grocery store and farm stands, meals in local restaurants, tips to waitstaff.

Since the President ReTweeted it, it has been ReTweeted 138 141 153 times.

Cool, right? Well, in addition to the solidarity of the ReTweets, I got responses. It wasn’t long before the rude people emerged from the Twitter shadows. One of them joined Twitter and out of their first seven Tweets, two were just expletives directed at me. Classy. Fortunately, I counted to ten and realized I needed to not engage with them. All their smut and snark has been going up in word bubbles above their heads; their misspelled and condescending Tweets going off into the ether.

If I ever had a question about whether or not I should run for public office, this experience answered that. I do not have a thick enough hide. It also caused me to have even more respect for the people who are willing to stand for office. Politics has always been rough and tumble. In these fast paced days of proliferating social media platforms, it is even tougher. Sure, there are plenty of chuckleheads who get elected, but I give them their due as well for being willing to suffer the slings and arrows; spam-bombs and swear words lobbed their way.