Obama's Twitter Popularity Surges After Support For Gay Marriage

Obama went on national TV on Wednesday to publicly show his support for gay marriage. This made him the first sitting president to do so, and caused quite the stir among both mainstream and new media types. Twitter quickly became a sounding board for any and all opinions about gay marriage and the president himself, as people took to their favorite 140-character medium to share their thoughts on the momentous declaration. Mashable got its hands on data showing Twitter's sentiment towards Obama after he made the announcement from social data company Topsy Labs. Obama's sentiment was sitting in the negatives before his declaration of support for gay marriage. But check out how quickly it rises when he appears on ABC News at around 12 noon PST: An 8 on the Topsy scale is extremely positive, as they say that a 2 or 3 is a generally positive sentiment. President Obama's Twitter account has been actively promoting the president's support for gay marriage since the interview. It tweeted the following immediately after the interview on ABC: "Same-sex couples should be able to get married."—President Obama— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 9, 2012 And it has since been actively engaging the community, retweeting several users who expressed their delight at his public stance. The digital team has even created a page on their website called "Stand with the President" that shows Obama's interview with ABC and collects email addresses from supporters. Other politicians jumped on Twitter to show their support of Obama's comments about same-sex marriage. Here are a few of the more prominent ones: A great day in our fight for civil rights-President Obama adds his support for marriage #equality. #BeautifulDay— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) May 9, 2012 Obama’s support today for marriage equality is HUGE. Fundamental fairness for all is within reach!— Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) May 9, 2012 President Obama taking a historic step today in declaring support for marriage equality. Couldn't be prouder.— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) May 9, 2012 I'm proud our President supports #love and #lgbt marriage equality. Thank you @BarackObama— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) May 9, 2012 And of course, there were some who were less than happy about Obama's statement, including the Republican National Committee (Mitt Romney himself hasn't tweeted since Obama's appearance): The Republican Party position is clear. We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman: bit.ly/IUB06T— RNC (@GOP) May 9, 2012 (Hat tip: Mashable)

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Obama's Twitter Popularity Surges After Support For Gay Marriage

Lauren Dugan

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Lauren Dugan