So how important is the debt ceiling crisis?  So important it has gotten the Obama team to actually use Twitter.  I’m only sort of kidding. 

It is understood that the 2008 Obama campaign was the most successful digital campaign ever.   Given how well run it was, it always seemed strange to me that they never really did much on Twitter.  They built a massive following to be sure (over 9 million followers at last count), but the updates have typically been fluffy.  Lots of stuff about President Obama’s travel schedule, what he was eating and the game he was watching at a given moment. 

The last few months things seem to have changed, at least to me.  Team Obama has started playing offense on Twitter.  President Obama did a Twitter-centric town hall back in early July.  The Office of the Vice President joined Twitter.  And most importantly, Team Obama has started using the account to promote his agenda, aggressively.  As you’ll see below, throughout the day today  President Obama has been using Twitter to mobilize followers to pressure specific legislators in key states in support ofa  debt ceiling compromise.  Below is a sample. 

Will it help?  Who knows.  But I think the aggressiveness being shown is a clear sign of how important the debt ceiling negotiation is to President Obama (and the country).  They are attempting to mobilize support using any means necessary. 

Update: Mashable has an article with more details about this.  The Obama campaign ended up sending more than 100 tweets targeting Republicans in all 50 states.  According to Mashable they lost 14,000 followers in the process.  I think it would have been more effective if they had been a bit more targeted.  Sending that many tweets in that short of a timeframe is annoying to followers and comes off as a tad desperate.