Blonde Ambition

If you don't remember the truly forgettable "McCain Space," the social network site for the 2008 Republican candidate that was supposed to bring him victory with the younger Internet-savvy set, I thought I'd post a screen shot in commemoration of the doomed venture that was soon colonized by the white middle-aged lovelorn and life-weary almost as soon as it was launched.

The only person on the McCain team who seemed to know anything about social media was McCain's daughter who was featured on McCain Spce but was probably more important to the campaign as author of her McCain Blogette blog.

As the Huffington Post notes in "Meghan McCain: 'Old School' Republicans Are 'Scared Shitless'," she's now dishing out some frank talk that argues that the Grand Old Party has far more serious troubles than its failure to capitalize on the Internet, when "she called out those officials in the Republican tent who insist that tactical improvements, technology and brass-knuckle politicking are the path back to relevance."

"Simply embracing technology isn't going to fix our problem," she said. "Republicans using Twitter and Facebook isn't going to miraculously make people think we're cool again. Breaking free from obsolete positions and providing real solutions that don't divide our nation further will. That's why some in our party are scared. They sense the world around them is changing and they are unable to take the risk to jump free of what's keeping our party down."

Now Meghan McCain is getting attention on Twitter, some of it probably of the wrong kind in the mind's of the party's handlers. For example, stories like "Meghan McCain Caught On Twitter: 'I Would Have Been a Horrible First Daughter'" seem to suggest that she's undermining Republican history one hundred forty characters at a time.

In writing for The Daily Beast, the young blonde McCain suggests that there's more to be learned from the Twittersphere about personal character, rhetorical appeals, and political style than mere gossip-mongering. "Karl Rove, Twitter Creep" argues that Rove's Twitter feed shows his lamely executed machinations and calculations while her father Senator McCain's feed displays the enthusiasm of a novice user genuinely concerned with communication to a wide-ranging constituency.

You can check out Meghan McCain on Twitter (and her exchanges with liberal celebs like Perez Hilton) for yourself.