Gotta agree that this idea is pretty stupid. The President's time should be spent making high-level decisions, not doing basic PR tasks like updating his Twitter status. He has people for that, and has more important things to do personally.

last one

Also ... and here's one for ya ...... I am not a US citizen nor do I live in the US. But in this forum, my vote's as good as yours. Assuming this (uservoice) format gets subsumed into the communications strategy of the new administration, maybe they could base registration on a social sec number. Crazy if they dont.
Great idea though watch this plummet as the non-tweeters arrive ..

Though I love this, it is is open to 'moblobs'* - (imagine Avaaz or MoveOn direct their users on here to focus on one issue?) and means a higher proportional representation of tech-literate people.
Doesn't mean don't do it, just needs some smarter people than me to work through the snags.
*i.e. replicating the current system of lobbying, just easier to subvert

I'd hate to think of the president using Twitter. dalelarson's idea is much more reasonable. Have staffers reading and gauging opinion of this highly niche portion of America. But in no way would I want Barack spending any portion of his day reading tweets.

Look how many followers he has and he is not even in office yet - I cannot see how he would be able to staff up to respond to all tweets. That's why there are local representatives - maybe whats needed is a many-many-one communication hierarchy : Citizen-Representative(n)-Leader : Using something like this (uservoice) allows aggregation of local requirements.

More importantly, have staffers reading and responding to incoming tweets so that people can interact with their president.