Rebuilding the GOP one Twitter at a time

President Barack Obama took new media to a whole new level in his campaign to raise money and communicate with constituencies. Now there is a push for Republicans to get in touch with more voters via the Internet.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says more and more members of her party are twittering to reach out: "I do, I do I twitter I am all atwitter. Our leader Boehner has been making a full court press upon us to make sure we are in the new media so we got Facebook, we got YouTube, and he says make sure you twitter so I twitter about three times a week."

Twitter users post what are known as tweets on their homepage. They are similar to status updates on Facebook. Posts can be about anything.

Ros-Lehtinen says her tweets are local: "I try to give it a hometown flavor because I am on foreign affairs and I don’t want people to always associate me with middle east and Cuba and all the hot spots in the world so I try to twitter about hometown things. If a group of students comes from Miami I will twitter about a funny question I was asked, there is always a funny question from kids so I try to give it a Miami appeal."

Twitter users can have hundreds or thousands of people following them. It is a quick and fast way for lawmakers to reach large numbers of constituents.

Sandra Day is the republican national committee woman for Florida. She says her party got beat in new media tactics in the presidential campaign and has its work cut out: "I mean it was a good lesson. We learned we were going to have to reach out our comfort zone and we were going to have to reach out to a group a new audience. There is a huge group of young individuals and young republicans that are looking for us to involve them in the process."

Day says technology will play an integral part in rebuilding the GOP. But many Republicans say it’s not just how they deliver their message, or how loud it gets, but its content.

Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer says the message needs sharpening: "What Americans are talking about is the economy security employment opportunities, educational opportunities and that’s what the party needs to be talking about."

President Obama’s advice to Republicans is to tune out partisan talk from the likes of right wing conservative Rush Limbaugh. The radio talk show host said he wanted the new President to fail.

Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart isn’t asking for the same: "I think we need to be supportive of President Obama where we can. We all want him to succeed. In areas where we think he is straying a little bit we obviously need to stand up but again we always have to keep in mind that the most important thing is not republican or democratic party it is the country and right now the country is struggling and we need to make sure we hold hands and try to fix this in a way that creates jobs and doesn’t bankrupt our country."

Diaz-Balart says the Republican Party lost its way over the past few years by spending too much. And getting back on track he says will require returning to core fiscal values, and strengthening the economy and national security. And it also means getting up to speed with new social technologies. Diaz-Balart says it seems members of his party have clearly fallen asleep at the switch.

Sara Sciammacco of WLRN Miami Herald News reports for "Capitol News Connection" in Washington.

Created by Bureau Chief and Executive Producer Melinda Wittstock, Capitol News Connection provides insightful, localized coverage of participating stations’ congressional delegations.

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