Jonathan Shorman

News-Leader

Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came.

For politicians, that place is often Twitter.

Twitter has become the social media of choice for many Missouri elected officials. The short messages are in some ways perfect for political messaging: enough space for slogans, not enough space for nuance.

The platform is also perfect for ego-stroking. For politicians, this means a steady supply of name-dropping, humble-bragging and congratulatory messages.

It has become a near-requirement for lawmakers to note how "great" it is be with another elected official at an event or how "honored" they are to be attending some function. These kind of tweets serve the dual purpose of saying "Hey, look at me, I do things" and subtly (or not so subtly) ingratiating oneself with another political leader.

"A big thank you to Mr. Vice President and Mrs. Cheney for coming to KC to support @KCRNC2016," a tweet from Republican gubernatorial candidate Catherine Hanaway said this week.

The tweet was accompanied by two photos of Hanaway posing with Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney. The Cheneys visited Kansas City while the Republican National Committee was in town considering whether to award the city the 2016 convention.

On June 3, Rep. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, tweeted: "Great to be w/ @RepHartzler on her Energy Tour in Moberly today. Working to protect affordable energy in Missouri."

Rowden was referring to U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler.

Or, consider this, tweeted by Gov. Jay Nixon last month: "Good to visit w/ @JoeReaganSTL & other biz leaders today about opportunities & challenges for our economy #momedicaid #mojobs #moexports."

Joe Reagan is the president and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association.

Now, surely each elected official in question had ample opportunity to thank the subject of their tweet in person. They probably even did.

So the purpose of tweeting out a photo of you with Dick Cheney has to be at least partly selfish, right?

Look, I'm not immune to this sort of thing myself. Last week when I visited New York I toured The New York Times — which for a reporter is probably as exciting as meeting Dick Cheney if you're a Republican politician — and made a point of tweeting out a thank you to a friend who made it possible. (I'm even kind of bragging about it again right now).

This kind of chumminess certainly is not new to politics. But Twitter has made it much more public and open. While politicians certainly like to pat each other on the back in person, because of Twitter, we are now all subjected to it.

That's not a bad thing, but I'm sure to the public it sometimes appears ridiculous. People in regular jobs usually do not tweet out that they just had a great meeting with their boss or that they are really enjoying a staff meeting.

Maybe the answer is not to stop tweeting about the good stuff, but to also tweet out some of the negatives every once and a while. The great-to-be-here tweets will probably appear more authentic that way.

If you had a bad meeting, post about it. If a lobbyist really irked you, send out a tweet.

Heck, if you just finished a bad interview with a reporter, tweet about that, too.

Jonathan Shorman is the News-Leader's statehouse reporter. Capitol Notes is his column about state and local politics. You can read his hopefully helpful, not-too-narcissistic Twitter feed at @jshormanNL.