Gingrich's campaign denies Twittergate claim

Newt Gingrich

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich boasted to the Marietta Daily that he had "six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined." But that claim was followed by a story where someone described as a former aide contended that the campaign paid "agencies" to pull in many of the 1.3 million people who follow Gingrich's Twitter feed.

The article, which appeared Monday on Gawker, included the following anonymous quote:

Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them. As you might guess, Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater. About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various "follow agencies," another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you'll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated. Pathetic, isn't it?

Separately, an Internet search firm in New York called PeekYou said that a test it ran to evaluate the GOP 2012 candidates' followership confirmed the Gawker claim. Michael Hussey, CEO and founder of PeekYou, said on the company's blog Tuesday that the more accurate number of Gingrich followers was closer to 106,055. (Of course, the publication of the PeekYou Analysis in the aftermath of the Gingrich dust-up also served as a golden marketing opportunity for the company, which plans to sell its "followers report" as part of an Internet analytics tool set.)

A Gingrich campaign aide has denied the list-rigging claim, telling National Review Online that the story was "a false accusation which will hurt the feelings of 1.3 million people. #rude." He later issued a similar denial to other media outlets.

Pretty bizarre stuff - even at a juncture in American political life where the quotidian often resembles the surreal. At this point, it's hard to judge the accuracy of the claims made by the Gawker tipster, though it should be noted that Gingrich, who has used Twitter since 2009, is also listed on the service as a "suggested user," a high-profile category that pulls in a large number of followers.

[thomasmc1957]

Everything else Gingrich has ever said or done has been a complete fraud, why wouldn't this be, too?

[JayArr8]

Byj virtue that only 12 comments on this story so far....Newt is not a big story.

Can you imagine him as president? All flapping gums and nothing real to say.

[kbbpll]

Sheesh, this buttclown is still running for President? I completely forgot about that.

[Truth_Tracker]

Now I understand why there are such monumental differences between how Newt thinks and how I think. I have a Twitter following of about 35 (maximum) and I am constantly 'blocking' gold-diggers who really don't give a rat's _ss about my Twitter site. One of us is 'real' and the other is 'ego delusional.' Anyone who can't discern who is who is probably 'ego delusional.' The really scary part is that I wouldn't be surprised if 50% of the general population was clueless as to which one of us is 'ego delusional.'

[johntate777]

Perhaps he's being followed by Tiffany's and other places he owes money?

[BILLYSNAP]

I though I saw his 19 wives standing over his grave?

[Jaylah54]

Sounds pretty childish to me. Like a bunch of 14 year old girls arguing in the middle school halls about who's more popular based on how many Facebook "friends" they have.

I also have to wonder how many of his "followers" are people that "follow" him just to see what idiotic thing comes out of his mouth next. (Sort of like Sarah Palin and Charlie Sheen.)

[Jhihmoac]

"Gingra the Hutt"...kind of looks like Jabba, too...

[pie-kun]

I'm not an "expert", but I am a frequent user of Twitter and I do have a at least half a brain (or so I hope), so I found some odd things about Newt's story:

1. Twitter's Top 300 most followed people (Newt is #286) is littered with singers, actors, comedians, talk show hosts etc. In other words, not politicians. Very few politicians have that much popularity on Twitter, and the ones that do are generally very well known (like Barack Obama). He even has twice the followers of Sarah Palin, and heaven knows his celebrity doesn't even begin to compete with that.

2. Newt Gingrich has had pretty dismal poll numbers since his campaign started. He simply does not have much support to win the Republican primary, yet he has six times the followers of all other candidates combined? Unusual.

3. Twitter is dominated by young people. People in their 20s today were simply too young to remember Gingrich's political hay-day and he has poor name recognition (and even poorer favorability ratings among those that do recognize him) among young people.

4. Gingrich does not have high favorable numbers, even among Republicans. In Gallup's most recent poll, he was recognized by 84% of Republican voters but only viewed favorably by 48%. Sarah Palin was recognized by 96% and viewed favorably by 65% and has half his followers.

This doesn't necessarily "prove" anything, however I think it calls for a more powerful response than "you're hurting people's feelings".

[stevex47]

Iknow you're not going to believe this, but, there are people who will vote for this.