Evan Vucci/AP
At 68-years-old, Newt Gingrich puts most senior citizens to shame with his grasp of social media trends. The Republican presidential candidate's campaign makes heavy use of the Internet, Facebook, and most recently Twitter to get its message out, connect with supporters and raise money.
But even the Web-savvy Gingrich struggles with the ever-evolving lexicon of cyberspace. On the stump, the candidate, who has grandchildren from his first marriage, has been promoting his plan to bring gas prices down to $2-$2.50 a gallon. On Wednesday, he told a packed house in Covington, to "go to hashmark gas 250" - a description that would have sent them searching for the incorrect search term #gas250 on Twitter (instead of #250gas, which the campaign is promoting). Previously, he had referred to the identifier as a "hash." The "#" sign is called a hashtag, and is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet.
Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond, who is roughly half the candidate's age, had a conversation with the boss about tweet terminology and by his next speech on Wednesday, Gingrich was correctly referring the audience to "hashtag 250 gas."
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