Twitterers christen election page with debate drinking game

(via Twitter.com)

Today was the debut of Twitter's new election page, where you can get a live feed of every last election-related tweet singing out across the land. As you might have expected, monitoring it is a frantic experience of democracy in action. Tweets with a candidate's name in them are crowding the page like rush hour commuters on the 405. They run the predictable gamut from the banal ("The first debates are on tonight and i'm at work! Thank god for the dvr. Obama ftw!") to the partisan ("I am here to support John McCain and Sarah Palin for President and Vice Prasident. I believe they are the best choice for America") to attempts at cheeky humor ("I wonder if Obama will respond 'present' to the first question tonight?").

It's not clear who would want to take advantage of grass-roots information that is so blade by blade. Except, of course, as Silicon Alley Insider points out, the political press. This should prove to be a treasure trove of quotable quotes and trend-story-ready memes.

Here's one of those already: a developing debate drinking game.

As one Twitterer explained it:

Can't help myself. R/T: Drinking rules for debate: #obamashot every time Obama says "change", #mccainshot when McCain says "my friends"

(Here's an explanation of how that "#" sound allows Twitterers to create a separate channel for all the tweets on this subject.)

What could be more bipartisan, more patriotic, more deeply in the spirit of American unity than an election-themed drinking game? And so I leave you with the final lines of Walt Whitman's ode to the Twitter-like chorus of voices that makes up our nation, "I Hear America Singing":

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day -- at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

--Maria Russo