The Twittocracy speaks

The president’s surrogates tried their best to cut down Mitt Romney on the weekend talk shows.

But the polls show the president’s lead slipping, Politico released a new poll, and even though most of the calls for this poll were made before the debate…

“Now among those who say they’re extremely likely to go vote, Romney leads Obama 52 to 46 percent,” said one report.

Compare that to three weeks ago when Mr. Obama was AHEAD among “extremely likely voters” by 3 percent. And look which groups are losing enthusiasm.

“Democrats, particularly constituencies like African Americans, Latinos and younger voters have changed their response from extremely likely to vote, to maybe they’ll vote,” the report continued.

Remember how people used to say debates don’t really matter, nobody pays attention?

Well, not only do people watch and pay attention to debates, but debates seem to have a unique ability to set off a mighty wind of social media commentary that can clearly change behavior every bit as effectively as a professional ad campaigns. The United States is now officially a Twittocracy.

Here we thought the Supreme Court’s corporate personhood decision would put the big money PACs in charge. And yet more and more of us have come to understand that those paid ads are contrivances. Whereas a comment from a friend – or consensus of a hundred friends – might just change your mind.