As your Hoosier correspondent on location in Washington DC, I feel it is my duty to report on the biggest story of the day. No, not the stock market, no not Toyota, no not even the demon sheep. No, I am talking about the imminent snow storm, or Snopocalypse 2010 as it has been dubbed on Twitter. (p.s. Has anyone seen Al Gore? He is strangely absent in the wake of current weather phenomena.)

I was born and raised in Indiana’s 2nd district, (side note: GO JACKIE! more on that in another post) so if there is one thing I know better than politics, it is snow (can you say Lake Effect?). Anyway, normally I am first in line to make fun of all the drama that occurs in the DC metro area when snow is in the forecast.  But this is a nor’easter aiming to dump close to 2 feet of snow with 50 mile an hour winds.  I would say that is pretty dramatic for even my Midwestern roots.

At the moment, the government is using their “liberal leave” policy, meaning employees can take unscheduled leave, and most places are taking it seriously and shutting down for tomorrow.  But alas, my employer is not one of those intelligent companies.  I fully expect to get to work in time for it to start snowing and absolute chaos to be reigning by the time I leave. Don’t worry, I plan on taking my camera to document the insanity.

Speaking of chaos, the supermarket situation in the entire DC area is a mad house as evidenced here, here and here.  I took my Midwestern level head and went grocery shopping last night thank goodness.  And now for the dumbest thing you have ever heard if you grew up around snow: in Virginia most counties have a policy of not beginning to plow until the snow has stopped.  Since it is supposed to start snowing tomorrow morning and not stop till 10 pm Saturday, I expect to not see blacktop until April.  And while on the subject of snow removal, I also stopped by the Home Depot and every person walking out had a snow shovel (I don’t know if Virginians realize this, but shovels are reusable and can be used for multiple snow falls).

As for the snow storm, I have 3 predictions:

1. I will make it to work, but I will there just in time to be told that we are closing for the day.

2. I will not make it to the Super Bowl party with all my fellow Hoosiers in DC on Sunday, but there will be an awesome Colts themed snow creation in my front yard.

3. DC metro maternity wards will be full in T-9 months.

Catch me on Twitter for up to the minute updates on Snopocalypse 2010 and now back to your regularly scheduled posts on Indiana politics.

Jim Treacher put Evan Bayh’s Blackberry email up on Twitter.

Here:

It doesn’t matter which state you live in. If you live in America, his vote will affect you. Tell him to vote no: eb@bayh.senate.gov

Send the Senator an email telling him what you think of his health care vote last night, before he gets a new Blackberry or gets his email changed.

Come Monday morning, the Senate IT people will have given him a new email address, so take advantage of this opportunity before it goes away.

Now the Left has resorted to editing and reposting others words on social networking sites in order to make their points. Then again, considering the Left’s history in distorting facts does this latest twist surprise anyone?

Hoosier Access posted on the official Twitter feed:

“RT @bill_starr: To @EvanBayh: Improve the U.S. healthcare system; get govt out of it. http://tr.im/uCwJ #hc09 #IN #46055″

To which a twitter user named John Murphy who claims to be from Nova Scotia, Canada (but who follows a massive number of US based entities) edits the tweet and posts:

“RT @HoosierAccess: To @EvanBayh: Improve the US healthcare system; get medical ins. companies out of it. http://tr.im/uCwJ #hc09 #IN #46055″

I’ve noticed in my time on Twitter that politicos in other states tend to have own unique hash tags (#something; used to make tracking topics or conducting searches easier).

Conservatives and Republicans in Indiana don’t have one as yet. In conversations with some of my fellow bloggers, it was suggested that we conduct a poll about what the best hash tag might be.

That poll is up over at Hoosierpundit on the right side of the page. It will be up for a week. Please vote.

Cross Posted from Porter County Politics

During the last campaign cycle Indiana politicians were seen to be using a little bit of social media, a blog here and there, and I think a few of them even played around with twitter. Over the last month I’ve noticed that a few more have migrated to twitter, so I went on a hunt this morning for twitter profiles for politicians. If you have more that I’ve missed, please submit in comments and I’ll update.

• Governor Mitch Daniels

• Lt. Governor Becky Skillman

• Secretary of State Todd Rokita

• Attorney General Greg Zoeller

• Superintendent of Public Instruction  Tony Bennett

• US Representative Mike Pence

• US Representative Dan Burton actually two Dan Burton – not sure which is official one

• US Senator Richard Lugar

• US Senator Evan Bayh – can’t verify authenticity yet, and hasn’t been updated since August

• Indianapolis Mayor Ballard – mostly third person, probably staffer

• State Representative Jackie Walorski

• State Representative Tom Dermody

• Fort Wayne City Councilman Mitch Harper

• Whitley County Councilman Jim Banks

• Judge Michael Kramer in Noble County

• Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold

I’ll do a separate post on party officials on twitter, yes both parties.

Alright Indiana tweeps, I’m sure I am missing some, or maybe this post will get some of the existing political crop to at least hold their own names so squatters don’t grab them.

Many politicians start out assigning their social media work to a staffer, and although this may work on facebook and blogs, twitter really demands a little bit of personality. Staffer generated tweets are pretty quickly dismissed as broadcast media and not worth engaging. A word of recommendation, if you are an elected official at any level in Indiana and see the potential to engage your constituents on twitter, do so yourself. Even one personal tweet a day and you’ll be amazed the following.

You may think you’re busy, but last I checked Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove are both personally tweeting from their blackberries, you aren’t more busy than they are.