State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, shown during a March meeting in the Irish Channel, delivered a feisty rebuttal to Gov. Bobby Jindal's speech Monday -- via her Twitter account.
In the ever-accelerating world of political journalism, it’s increasingly common for pundits and media figures to offer their reporting live over the Internet as events unfold. Likewise, it’s a well-established tradition that after any head of state gives a major address, members of the opposing party are sought out afterward for a response.
On Monday, as Gov. Bobby Jindal delivered a session-opening address to the state legislature, Uptown’s state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson combined tradition with trend and offered her own rebuttal to the governor live, as he was speaking, over the Twitter social network.
“Governor’s budget relies on one time money for recurring expenses: in 2008 that was taboo!” Peterson (@kcpsenate5) exclaimed to her nearly 300 followers Monday afternoon, tweeting from the House chamber while Jindal spoke at the podium.
“Gov Jindal blames DC for spending/taxing too much while he constantly looks for more ways to balance budget on backs of feds,” she said in another message.
During the governor’s 20-minute speech, Peterson offered her six barbs while journalists such as Bill Barrow of The Times-Picayune (@BillBarrowTP) were tweeting Jindal’s words live, creating the point-counterpoint semblance of a debate — or at least as much of one as can be delivered 140 typed characters at a time. Peterson’s comments, meanwhile, drew no response from Jindal’s official account (@BobbyJindal).
After the speech ended, Peterson’s account went quiet. Several hours later, the senator returned to let her followers know where they could find an expanded version of her thoughts: in an old-fashioned TV interview she’d just taped for the evening news.
State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson lost no time in criticizing Gov. Bobby Jindal's budget speech Monday; the Uptown New Orleans senator offered her thoughts live over Twitter while Jindal was speaking.
Contact Robert Morris (@UptownMessenger on Twitter) at rmorris@NolaMessenger.com, or post your comment below.
And here’s my critique of Sen. Peterson’s critique:
If skills workers are important, why wld governor cut higher ed
Because we’re in a recession and there’s not enough money.
Gov Jindal blames DC for spending/taxing too much while he constantly looks for more ways to balance budget on backs of feds
This is unfair. Jindal didn’t create the current system where the federal government taxes everyone and then doles out money to states, but he still has to work within it to manage the state on an even playing field with other states. It’s no different from a person thinking that a particular tax deduction is bad public policy, but taking advantage of it anyway.
Governor’s budget relies on one time money for recurring expenses: in 2008 that was taboo!
A fair criticism.
Governor says no to taxing oil and tobacco companies. He says yes to taxing students thru increased fees!
Subsidizing higher education less is not “taxing” anyone. It may be a bad policy, but this misrepresents the dynamic. I could also point out that tobacco and oil taxes are problematic (particularly with the permatorium going on), but suffice to say those aren’t so cut-and-dried.
Governor supports corporate tax break renewals but won’t renew taxing tobacco
I must be missing the contradiction here. He wants to cut taxes.
Since Gov says people of LA trust themselves more than govt…query: why do we tax them at all?
Again, this is unfair. What Jindal is saying is that because the people trust themselves more than government, we would be better off keeping government small and largely restricting it to those functions where private arrangements are inadequate. If he meant “Anarchy! Whoo!” he would have said that, but obviously that’s not what he was trying to communicate.