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The GOP's budget messaging campaign: A #hashtag tale
Someone has a fondness for inventing trending topics
As the clock ticks down, Democrats and Republicans are still at an impasse over the budget and the debt ceiling, with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) suffering yet another humiliating setback at the hands of his own party.
But you can't fault Boehner for not trying hard enough on Twitter.
Yep. Over the past year, Boehner and his cohorts have roundly defeated Democrats in the all-important race to create a slew of trending topics on the social media site. Boehner has been pushing hashtag-adorned, budget-focused phrases — typically displayed on blue poster board — during press conferences on a near-monthly basis.
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Whether Republicans are actually passing these messages around on Twitter or Facebook is another question. But the sheer accumulation of the phrases over the past year does offer a nice visual timeline of the conservative side of the budget story.
And so we give you the GOP's #budgetmessages:
December 13, 2012 | #SpendingIsTheProblem
January 22, 2013 | #NoBudgetNoPay
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Lauren Hansen produces The Week’s podcasts and videos and edits the photo blog, Captured. She also manages the production of the magazine's iPad app. A graduate of Kenyon College and Northwestern University, she previously worked at the BBC and Frontline. She knows a thing or two about pretty pictures and cute puppies, both of which she tweets about @mylaurenhansen.
