WALKER'S TWITTER PROBLEMS OWN DOING

 INDISCRIMINATE IN WHOM HE FOLLOWS

PROMISCUOUS BY WHOM HE IS FOLLOWED

WALKER CANNOT BLAME OUTSIDERS

FOR ALL HIS TWITTER ILLS*

(*BUT HE DOES, ANYWAY)

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld

By Michael Horne

And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team

Scott Walker got a bit of mileage recently when his Twitter account @scottkwalker was suspended for suspicious activity. Walker blamed his opponents for the shutdown, but provided no specifics.
In a report by the entirely credulous Michael George of WTMJ-TV 4,
"Walker thinks it was a politically motivated attack on his campaign.
'We don't know who exactly, but some groups, probably detractors from the campaign, come in. They sign up to be a follower, then, they unsign up. Then, they sign up again, claiming that it's spam,' Walker said."
The truth, as usual, will likely prove to be more nuanced than Walker's simplistic rationalization. An analysis of Walker's twitter account will show he and his staff have not followed best practices, likely in an attempt to bolster his numbers. This alone would be sufficient to cause serious problems in any Twitter account.

[Some have speculated Walker's account was frozen by twitter because the campaign itself "followed" and "unfollowed" other twitterers in an attempt to boost his numbers. I will leave this argument aside due to lack of evidence immediately at hand. I think there is enough to indict Walker's campaign without it.]
A visit to Walker's now-unfrozen account provides some undisputed statistics. 
Walker "follows" 3,757 other twitter accounts. This means Walker's twitter account approached 3,757 twitter accounts and took the effort to follow their tweets. That is a very high number.
So who are some of the folks Walker follows? One would imagine a statesman of Walker's caliber would only follow important and interesting people. Instead, we find he follows such entities as Floor Mat Guys, Autowrite NC, Free Ringtones, Big Sam Auto and Horse Trailer W. [The names have been changed slightly to prevent this blog from spam.]

Walker is one of only 46 followers of Horse Trailer W, who himself follows nobody. "Horse Trailer W", by the way, sells Horse Trailers. (He's got a '96 Sundowner for $39,900.) So the question must be asked why Walker is following this utterly commercial site. My answer: to boost his numbers and make himself look impressive. 
Look at Walker's hero, Newt Gingrich, who himself has posted a tweet about Walker's wonderfulness. Gingrich only follows 96 others, including John McCain, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Review of Books, and other such sites. Not a horse trailer dealer in the lot. 
Yet Gingrich has over 1 million followers. Walker has just over 4,600 followers -- that is to say, those who receive, in their twitter mailboxes, the tweets issued by Walker, which number 785 at this time. 
Who are some of the 4,600 who have subscribed to read Walker's every tweet? They include Hot Red In Bed, Stock Exploder ("We explode penny stocks to make a fortune for you!), Bay Area Cadillac and others, a good number of which are not in English, or based in this continent. 
Although Hot Red in Bed, the Stock Exploder and other of Walker's followers may have a deep and abiding interest in the governance of the state of Wisconsin, chances are they, and unknown numbers of Walker's other followers, may indeed have "romance" and commerce in mind, and not the furtherance of the political process. That, and a certain canned ham product by Hormel.

So, why does Walker allow himself to be followed by these creatures who would have been blocked by any respectable twitterer? 
I'll go back to my earlier explanation: It's likely an attempt to bolster his numbers. 
Walker and many of his supporters blame outsiders for tampering with his Twitter account. I don't have any proof of that, and if they do, they haven't demonstrated it. 
As always with Scott Walker, the injury appears to be self-inflicted.