How the Heller Twitter Experiment Was Discovered, the Final Chapter

Although I had apparently tricked Senator John Ensign's staff into thinking I was Congressman Dean Heller, or at least the staff member who drew the short stick, I knew my Great Twitter Experiment would have to end.  In fact, truth be told, I was getting tired of having to check Heller's official site for any news that needed to be parsed, tinyURLized and then twittered.  I had thought signing up for Heller's email updates would make it easy.  And it would have, except he rarely sends out emails when he has a press release.  Oh well.

The Holiday Tweets

For some reason or another come Mothers Day I stumbled across a site that mentioned Senator Claire McCaskill was twittering about her Mom all day.  I thought that was a nice touch and, after poking around the site, found a couple more politicians wishing mothers well.  It made sense, I mean what kind of politician would want to forget that holiday.  Not only would they look like a tool, but that's a pretty big constituency to boot.  Then I remembered -- I was Dean Heller.

So I went to his site hoping there might be some proclamation or something honoring the day.  No such luck. I checked Ensign's Twitter account thinking maybe I could see what he was doing and crib a little.  Unfortunately, the Senator's staff had apparently forgotten the day too.  So the question became, "Do I leave Heller looking insensitive to, of all people, Moms everywhere, or break my rule of only using words taken from an official press release?"  Thus, at 1:53 pm PST on May 10 the first non-official Heller tweet was launched.  All 27 characters.

A Happy Mothers Day to all.

Oh, and Senator Ensign did tweet a Mothers Day wish.  About five hours later.

The same situation would occur a few weeks later when Memorial Day arrived. Although Heller was attending a ceremony at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City, I thought something should be said on the Twitter account. Hopefully the following tweet was appropriate.

Let's all take the time today to remember the American men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. They're true heroes.

How Logan Cratty Did Me In

The end would finally come with an honor of sorts.  The Washingtonian's Sophie Gilbert had been running a blog that features "The Tweet Beat: The Best Congressional Tweets of the Week."  In the June 5 edition, Heller makes the cut for, of all things, a tweet about a Pahrump High student, Logan Cratty, winning our district's congressional art contest.

Still, it was an honor even if I actually wasn't the real Dean Heller.  But it also presented a conundrum.  Since this blog tends to cover Nevada politics and, therefore, Heller, it would make sense to do a post about the Washingtonian piece.  However, it would be a little risky since this blog receives daily hits from the House and Senate's IP address.  But what the heck, I thought, maybe it would provoke a response. So I posted.

I guess I'll never really know if it was my post or the original source that finally opened the eyes of Heller's staff, but that Monday morning, June 8, 2009, I went to the Twitter account and my password would not work.  Thus ended the Great Dean Heller Twitter Experiment.  Gone were the tweets and 600+ followers.  In was the new, and official, Heller Twitter page.  The strange part was there was no notice from Twitter or an email, or direct message for that matter, from the Heller camp.  It just changed with the snap of a finger.

If there is a lesson to be learned in this whole saga it is to be vigilant of your own name or brand, especially if you are a politician. It seems like everyone has been talking about the power of the new social media and its place in politics for a couple years now, yet it's apparent not all have taken notice. 

I could have very easily used the site maliciously and posted something like "It's official fellow Nevadans. I will be running against Harry Reid for the U.S. Senate in 2010." and started a small firestorm.  But I didn't.  Instead, I became a sort of reluctant caretaker who kept waiting for the new shift to finally realize I needed to be relieved.  I just didn't think it would take 163 days.

Part 1: My Great Dean Heller Twitter Experiment Comes to an End
Part 2: More of the Great Dean Heller Twitter Experiment
Part 3: Some Trouble on the Heller Twitter Front

The Google cache of the Original Congressman Dean Heller Twitter account.