The 2012 Presidential election is fast approaching. It’ll be interesting to see how much more of a role social media will play in the election, compared to that of 2008.

While at the Blogworld Expo in L.A. WebProNews caught up with Hugh Hewitt, of the Hugh Hewitt Show, and he shared his thoughts on social media, pertaining to elections, and the forthcoming Republican candidate nomination:

“We’re coming into the home stretch here with the Republican nominating process, even though we haven’t cast one vote. That means we tend to make our minds up much earlier than we used to and the Republican electorate is settling down to what I believe will be a Mitt Romney nomination. But, there is still an outside chance that Rick Perry can catch him. He’s got a lot of money and a lot of experience.

It’s a Romney / Perry race. If I had to bet the house, and I don’t thank goodness, it would be on Romney”

It’s no secret that social media played a huge role in the 2008 Presidential race, but what role will it play in next years? Hewitt states that, President Obama had an enormous advantage in 2008 and he ran rings around John McCain. John McCain was not an early adapter of anything… except courage. That’s not enough in a social media world. He goes on to say:

“If you look at team Romney they have assembled the best and brightest minds of the center / right of social media. A lot of people who are very experienced in driving a message below the old media horizon.

It’s very active, and it’s very netted up and you will find at least a match when it comes to ability and performance and probably a lot more sophistication. It helps to be in the opposition. The reason that team Obama was so good is they were all in the wilderness they did not except campaign. Republicans were governing. Now they have that problem and something to defend. That new media energy is on the right, and that will alway shift. The administration party will be behind the curve.”

The 2012 Presidential race will be interesting to watch and see how it plays out, and what new roles social media plays.

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