Arnold Reigns as King of the Tweets

Communications directors promised Arnold is behind every single tweet

When it comes to twitter, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has one of the highest political rankings in the country.

Only President Barack Obama, former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain can say they have more followers than the California governor.

According to the Sacramento Bee,  1.15 million people want to know what he has to say, 140 characters at a time. However, his Twitter page says today that he has just under 630,000 loyal followers. Compare that to Gore's 1.6 million, McCain's 1.3 million or San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's 1-million-plus followers.

If you are not one of the governor's loyals, you probably missed the fact that he felt the need to wash his hands one day following a briefing on swine flu.

Or that his plane had to make an emergency landing earlier this year.  "All's ok, though."  (That tweet came with a photo from the tarmac.)

Or that he thinks his son is "a true stud" as he wished him a happy 16th birthday last week.

Schwarzenegger still uses the traditional ways to communicate to the public in a weekly radio address and nearly daily press releases, but he seems to truly enjoy the tweet part of the job.

He doesn't stop with characters alone.  Earlier this summer he posted a video on Twitter showing him holding a knife the size of his arm. If you expected the post to talk about budget cuts or slashing spending you would be wrong.  The governor went a different route as he thanked his Twitter followers for coming up with ideas to help the state's financial woes.  The buck knife was never explained, but did catch the attention of network television and was played across the country.

 
 
 
 
 


Some have questioned whether the governor is actually behind the tweets since he doesn't carry a Blackberry. 

His communications director told the Sac Bee, "Every single post is directed by the governor," Aaron McLear said.

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