Front and Center: Evaluating President Obama's Twitter Town Hall Meeting

This past Wednesday, I had the unique opportunity of sitting front and center, five feet away from President Obama and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, at the White House’s first ever Twitter Town Hall meeting.

At the Town Hall, in front of an audience of 140, President Obama was asked a series of questions submitted by Twitter users from across the nation. Aside the stage stood two large screens: one showing a U.S. map with dots to show where the questions were coming from; the other, a topic tracker which indicating 28% of the questions coming in were about jobs, 18% about the budget, 17% about taxes, 7% about education and 6% about housing.

As mentioned, perhaps to no surprise, questions relating to jobs and the economy dominated the discussion. Arguably the most notable question on jobs came from President Obama’s counterpart in Congress, Speaker Boehner. Dorsey, serving as the moderator throughout the event, presented a tweet from Boehner asking President Obama "Where are the jobs?" In a rare act of concession, the President acknowledged job growth has not occurred fast enough, noting that while job growth has occurred to an extent, ultimately it will take time for his economic policies to fully take effect.

During the course of the event, President Obama referenced the need for a return to Clinton Era tax levels when responding to questions on the economy and the nation’s current debt situation. He asserted on a few instances that unlike under President Bush, the tax levels under President Clinton helped promote job and business growth.

Putting into better perspective his support for those tax levels, the President stated, “If wealthy individuals are willing to simply go back to the rates that existed back in the 1990s… when we saw the highest job growth rates and when we saw the greatest reduction in poverty, and when we saw businesses very profitable -- if the wealthiest among us -- and I include myself in this category -- are willing to give up a little bit more, then we can solve this problem.”

Not to paint a one-sided picture by any means, the President did clearly express the need for spending cuts to be made as a solution to the current debt situation and economic woes. These included making spending cuts in ineffective, inefficient welfare, defense and other programs.

For me, this event was defiantly an amazing experience in the sense, I was able to meet and say a few words to the President, and have the unique opportunity of seeing social media and politics come together at the grandest arena -- the White House.

However, from a substantive standpoint, I do not think much was gained or lost from the Town Hall. It was far from groundbreaking by any means, and offered little information that I personally was not already aware of.

Despite this, there is a major positive to be gained from this Town Hall: the increasing impact and influence social media now has on politics. While President Obama may not regularly engage Twitter users himself, other politicians in Congress are making efforts to secure time each week to engage more with their constituents online.

For me, this not only serves as a positive mechanism to keep and promote constituent engagement in the political process, but it also serves as an additional forum for constructive dialogue in some cases.

As we witnessed the impact and effect of the social media in the last Presidential election, I think it is safe to presume that the social media and politics will only become more compatible in future elections to come.