The MI GOP: Leading Their National Party to Twit Failure

When I wrote my post describing Crazy Pete Hoekstra’s Twitter security breach, I had one thought in my mind: the Republicans have been learning their online social networking skills from MI’s Republicans.

Saul Anuzis, MI’s former GOP Chair, who lost just about every election he could, has long been fond of trolling at MI’s lefty blogs and experimenting with Facebook and was an early Twitter user. Because this made him a rarity among the tech-impaired Republicans, he attracted support for his run for RNC Chair out of the mistaken belief that he was some tech whiz.

Crazy Pete, I thought as soon as I heard about his Twitter security breach, learned his stuff from Saul.

We could only be so lucky, I mused further, if the GOP nationally took after Saul’s sloppy Twitter habits.

Consider us lucky. Following in Saul’s and Crazy Pete’s footsteps, the idiotic Republican Chair in Virginia just blew a plot to flip the Senate today by tweeting about it prematurely. Democrats currently have a 21-19 majority in the VA Senate. Republicans had convinced Democrat Ralph Northam to flip sides which, with the Republcian Lt Governor, would have tipped the Senate to the Republicans.

And then the Republican Party Chair Jeff Frederick tweeted it. 

Having been thus warned, the Democrats adjourned before Republicans could execute their plot … and proceeded to pound Northam until he rethought his decision to flip.

The Republicans fucked up a chance to flip the Senate with their sloppy Tweet habits! 

You are all welcome, America, for the lessons Saul Anuzis has given his fellow Republicans.

Update: More Twitting, this time in NY.

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41 replies
  1. allan says:

    Does Pete Hoekstra have a security clearance?
    If so, why isn’t it in the process of being revoked?
    His stupidity put people’s lives in danger.

  2. bobschacht says:

    Isn’t technology wunnerful!

    I guess we can understand why the secret service or whomever it was got all jittery about Obama’s blackberry. I hope they have his new blackberry-clone well fortified against hacking. And I’ll bet certain foreign governments (not excluding Israel) are eagerly seeking hackers who can help them invade Obama’s cyberspace!

    Bob in HI

  3. Redshift says:

    Jeff Frederick is the gift that keeps on giving. Waldo Jaquith of Charlottesville is on the mailing list for the VA GOP newsletter, and post every so often about Frederick’s hilarious detachment from reality. He’s from the wing that believes the cause of any Republican problem is always that they weren’t conservative enough, in addition to having no tactical or strategic sense, and as we see here, never having the sense to keep his mouth shut.

    • NorskeFlamethrower says:

      Citizen Redshift:

      That’s all the fascists have left in the old South…if ya like George Allen, you’ll LOVE the rest of the walkin’ dead.

  4. Rayne says:

    They must all be using the guidance of their teenagers as to tweet-worthiness, like Anuzis. It was Anuzis’ son who told him that his lost luggage would be interesting to readers…heh.

      • Rayne says:

        Yup. Eye-opening, to watch how teenagers so carelessly use technology, now that I’ve got a teenager here beginning to use social media. It’s been an extremely revealing experience to coach somebody through all the decision-making they should employ when using these tools. The bullying began almost immediately, almost as fast as the thoughtless sharing of personal information.

        Watching the Repubs begin to work these new tools is not much different than watching the teens; the only thing we’re not seeing in plein air is the bullying, and that’s surely going on behind the scenes.

        Can’t wait for the first nasty batch of intra-party bullying to emerge, because it will be ugly. Especially if teens are encouraging their adoption of these social media tools.

          • Rayne says:

            I’ve thought about blogging it, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be more fun to wait and save it for the first time the savagery of social media-enabled bullying emerges in the public eye.

            They are already doing it all the time via the gay chat rooms; they are vicious in their use of people they believe are compromised to accomplish their ends.

            Just need to be patient and watch for the first volley of wretchedness to show up in Twitter,

            Maybe we should take bets — non-monetary of course — as to how long it will be before it happens.

    • Redshift says:

      Same thing that’s happening in Congress, and in a lot of other states. Older generation of moderate Republicans (many of whom were moderate only compared to the current know-nothings) retiring or dying off. Younger generation of Norquist acolytes who understand nothing but absolute enforcement of their established beliefs, and excommunication for the slightest heresy. They’re the only people in a position to move up as the older generation moves out, and they’re only attracting like-minded recruits.

      I don’t see any way for them to recover through anything other than generational change. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

      Did I mention that our Republican AG and candidate for governor has a law degree from Regent University?

  5. ART45 says:

    EW,

    I like your posts.

    But you posit Dem vs. Repub.

    It’s a false dichotomy (to use something from the 1970s or beyond).

    The problem isn’t repubs.

    It’s deeper.

    It’s those who take our trust and violate it.

    Since 11/22/63.

    And if you think this is just old conspiracy stuff, go do your research.

  6. randiego says:

    it’s fortunate really. with the incompetent leadership congressional dems are currently fielding, at least we can count on republicans everywhere to be even more incompetent.

    we’re lucky it’s this way. It won’t always be.

  7. dmac says:

    haven’t read comments yet, don’t know if this was posted-
    jeff frederick the va repub chair
    from his twitter link that ew posted–
    he posted it two hours ago, saying, well, read it yourself–unreal. plausible implausibility.
    http://roanokevalleyrepublican…..icans.html

    and read his other twitter stuff, especially how people otta be able to ‘text’ while driving….really.

    • Redshift says:

      Hee, hee, that’s great! “No, it wasn’t my fault, no matter what anyone says!”

      Did you like his tweet about how the defeat of a fine for people who cross railroad tracks: “Freedom wins one.” Frederick is a true loon.

      • dmac says:

        yeah, he was complaining about individual rights being taken away, makes me think he’s a ‘paul’ie and not a gop’er…

        he certainly is against the smoking ban, that surprises me.

  8. ThingsComeUndone says:

    I’m worried the GOP is desperate for power and the bribes to politicians to switch sides in close votes or to switch parties are only beginning Joe Lieberman is next.

    • dmac says:

      lieberman was knocking mccain’s stand on issues today on msnbc this morning…i’ll see if i can find the footage…at first i thought he was talking about obama, then realized he mean his buddy mccain. wonder what he is gettting for acting like a staunch obama supporter. was sickeningly sweet. like nothing. ever. happened.

  9. Bluetoe2 says:

    Saul Anuzis is often seen lying on the local Michigan PBS program “Off the Record” with Tim Skubic, who considers himself the insiders insider. Skubic sees himself as Michigan’s answer to Tim Russert. What does that tell you about the quality of political discourse on PBS in MI?

    • emptywheel says:

      I’ve been on, three times, I think.

      I don’t think he wants me on anymore. I tend to beat up his nice conservative guests. Here’s my favorite show. And here’s the one where I think I got myself permanently uninvited for being mean. The other one was a boring “intro to blogging” one.

      • freepatriot says:

        you ???

        mean to conservatives ???

        told the truth on em, dintcha ???

        an on topic:

        maybe the Michigan repuglitards should get toobz to splain how these thingys work

        people say that Obama is playing chess while the repuglitards are playing checkers

        I say you gotta look closer

        the repuglitards ain’t playing checkers

        the repuglitards are chewing on the checkers an droolin on themselves …

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