e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

PerryForPresidentFML: Clever Site Helps You Tweet Against Rick Perry

August 16th, 2011

Here’s a fun idea — the folks at Progress Texas have put together PerryForPresidentFML, a website whose whole purpose is to make it easy for you to send out unflattering-but-true messages about Texas Governor and new Presidential candidate Rick Perry over Twitter. From the intro:

Now that conservative TX Gov Rick Perry has officially launched his Presidential campaign, it is important to remember the lasting legacy he will leave for Texas. After 25 years in public office and 10 years as the Governor, Perry has dramatically changed what Texas looks like for future generations. Below are just a few of his accomplishments.

That text is clearly tongue-in-cheek, which you might already guess from the “FML” in the site title. Scroll down a bit and you can flip through the aforementioned “accomplishments” in the form of pre-packaged Tweets, any of which you can send through your own Twitter account by pushing the handy “Tweet” button. Some samples:

• In 2003 Texas led the country in child abuse death. Perry responded to this by cutting more funding from Child Protective Services #PerryFML
• Rick Perry’s budget eliminated funding for state Reading, Math and Science Initiatives #PerryFML http://ht.ly/5ZaqW
• Rick Perry gave $16 million in state technology grants to his top campaign donors #PerryFML http://ht.ly/5ZaqW
• Under Perry, Texas ranks 1st in percent of uninsured children #PerryFML

Clever! Obviously, this is a single-purpose website, rather than an attack-on-all-fronts platform like the Texas Democratic Party’s new MeetRickPerry.com, but it still has some room for growth. For instance, why not include a rolling display of all Tweets using the #PerryFML hashtag to show public support? Even better, it’d be great to see this prepackaged-Tweet feature incorporated into other sites like MeetRickPerry.com that have a similar mission — united we stand, and all of that. Thanks to Marta Evry for sending this around.

– cpd