Obama doesn’t follow Hillary, and other things we noticed from his first day on Twitter

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What does it mean that President Barack Obama doesn’t follow his potential successor, Hillary Clinton, on Twitter?

Does it mean he secretly wants his vice president, Joe Biden, to run? That he’s running for a third term?!

Probably neither.  But one fact among many that was noted from the president’s first day on Twitter Monday: Obama follows Bill, but not Hillary.

You might be saying: I already follow @BarackObama on Twitter. But the Obama campaign ceded control of that account to Organizing for Action, the group that formed out of the campaign, in 2012. And the president rarely tweets from it.

White House director of online engagement Alex Wall said the new account will “serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him.” The White House already has accounts for @FLOTUS, @VP, and more.

Obama’s first day on Twitter brought him some of the pains he’ll likely experience as commander in chief on the service. He already got “follow back?” requests from members of Congress:

(Bold move for a third-term congressman from Rhode Island.)

Obama also got “why-aren’t-you-following?” messages from professional sports teams, including one of the two baseball teams from his hometown of Chicago:

Obama is a White Sox fan, and they rubbed it in:

But for the Cubs, members of Congress, and even Hillary Clinton, there’s hope for a follow. Right now, he follows just 65 people — mostly official government accounts, the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, and Bears, and his wife, @FLOTUS (Michelle Obama). But the White House said Obama would keep adding to his follows, even though he would not engage in direct messaging — or have much time to scroll through the thousands of people leaving him what surely are messages of encouragement.

For his part, Bill did have a question for the sitting president:

And Obama had a very good response:

Brett LoGiurato is the senior national political correspondent at Fusion, where he covers all things 2016. He’ll give you everything you need to know about politics, with a healthy side of puns.

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