Arizona Sen. John McCain is now looking to endorse a candidate for the Republican presidential race, and those on Twitter may be getting a preview of who it might be.
All indications, or in this case tweets, point to Gov. Mitt Romney, who McCain has mentioned in three separate tweets in the last two weeks. On Nov. 22, McCain promoted a video that Romney’s campaign had made about President Barack Obama’s “broken promises.”
On Monday, the former GOP presidential nominee defended Romney after an unflattering story was published: “Bad news: Another below-the-belt Joe Klein hit piece on Romney. Good news: Nobody cares,” McCain wrote. And a day later, McCain tweeted his support of Romney’s decision to skip out on an upcoming GOP debate hosted by Donald Trump.
Each time, McCain’s tweets about Romney have been retweeted more than 100 times, although it’s unclear if the mentions are running up Romney’s number of followers. As of Wednesday, McCain has more than 1,700,000 followers, likely leftovers from the 2008 race, whereas Romney has only about 191,000. Of course, that number would likely skyrocket if he were to grab the GOP nomination.
No other Republican candidate has been mentioned on McCain’s twitter feed recently and some politicos suspect he would be more likely to endorse Romney because of a checkered past with Newt Gingrich. McCain also said, according to The Hill, that he was unsure if the former Speaker of the House could challenge President Barack Obama. Some were also speculating McCain’s endorsement of Romney would come just before the New Hampshire primary, a theory that would make sense if Gingrich won in Iowa. McCain is wildly popular in the Granite State, having won the Republican primaries there in 2000 and 2008.
Whoever McCain decides to endorse in the coming weeks and months, it’s most likely Twitter will hear it first.
Photo by Desiree N. Williams
