Yesterday morning, my Tweetdeck was aflutter with those anticipating the Health Care Summit. On their way to the Blair House to meet with Congressmen from both chambers and the President himself for the eventual seven and a half hour-long debate, some asked their followers what they wanted to be brought up, and others, like John McCain, put their game faces on: : "on my way to the health care summit at the White House--let's start over Mr. President."

Many encouraged their constituents to follow the debate via C-SPAN in their uniquely Twitterific ways: Representative Joe Barton's "At White House about to participate in Health Care Summit with President. It will be on C-SPAN & other networks possibly" definitely resonates differently than Senator Chuck Grassley's imperative "On way to White House/Blair House health care summit. Watch on TV." 

Senators Harry Reid and Chris Dodd were among those who tweeted to inform their followers that their staff would be posting on their behalf during the Summit, respectable in their desires to keep communication going while not seeming rude or distracted during the summit. However, for those of us following on Twitter, the real moment we felt included in the discussion was when Judge Carter tweet-announced "Let the Health Care Summit begin..."

There was definitely a whole lot of tweeting going on during the Summit, and I'm guessing a fair portion of it was not done by staff. A Republican trend emerged that either @gopconference or @GOPleader (John Boehner) would post a "FACT CHECK:____" refuting something the President had just said, and a handful of Republican Congressmen (including Mike Pence, Phil Gingrey, Bob Latta, would retweet (RT) the blurb. Representatives Bill Shuster, John Shimkus, Vern Buchanan, Bob Latta posted polls for their followers who were watching the Summit to voice their opinion/give the Congressmen realtime stats on what his constituents wanted him to do.

Eventually it was time for a break, and Chuck Grassley was sure to keep us updated (& slightly confused): "Broke for lunch fr Summit not bc hungry House had vote". Representatives Tom Price and John Shimkus used the break to tally up minutes of talk-time; as Representative Shimkus put it, "Time clock on first half of healthcare summit: Dems spoke for 108 min, GOP spoke for 56 minutes. Who's doing the listening?"

Things really started to get juicy in both the latter half and aftermath of the Summit. More than anything, the tweets reflect continued Republican sentiment of being "left out", in spite of the bipartisan circumstances of the Summit. Nonetheless, emotions were stirred, and the following are some highlights to that effect:

•  The most retweeted post of the day was Jim DeMint's "After a year pretending Republicans don't have health care ideas, the President just admitted we do. #tcot #gop #hcr"

•  Senator DeMint was also really diligent to add links to the end of his tweets yesterday. The post "President says he's open to GOP ideas but he voted against them when he was in the Senate" was followed by a link to a laundry list on his website of past Republican health care reform initiatives that Senator Obama voted against. However, his most interesting linked post was  "Obama & Reid still open to reconciliation. If it they try to ram this through, I'll use every tool to stop it" where he linked to a post on his blog entitled "Irreconcilable Differences", implying that the Republicans and the Democrats/President/healthcare bills are getting divorced. What happened to staying together for the kids?

•  Randy Neugebauer took the posted link one step further: he linked to a youtube video. "It's time to stop politicizing health care and start an honest conversation with the American people" a link to a short film where he is sitting alone with a camera, really breaking that fourth wall and speaking directly to his constituent, telling them what they want through aptly linked talking points.

•  David Vitter drove home a common theme: that the healthcare plan ignores what "the people" want (although the only answer to "what they want" that I've heard is lower cost which seems a bit reductive). "Healthcare Summit proves Obama & fellow liberals not listening to the people #LAsen #latcot #tcot #gop#teaparty" which (look at all those trending topics!) he followed with a link to his facebook page that had a longer version of the same rant.

•  Chris Dodd posted a few resonating statistics, a breath of fresh air among the blood pressure-raising FACT CHECKS and calls to start over. "In the next ten years, without reform, every state will have a 10% increase in the number of uninsured. #hcr" and "Coverage is essential--14,000 people lose their health insurance every day."

•  Lamar Smith believes that healthcare is done: "#TCOT Obama is holding wrong summit. Health care summit today is too little, too late  http://lamarsmith.house.gov/read.aspx?ID=1309".

•  Patrick McHenry, among his various invitations for people to watch the Summit and tweet-chat with him about it, also tried to make a few jokes. Some included "Nancy Pelosi just claimed a government takeover of health care will create jobs "immediately"... I'm having pre-stimulus vote flashbacks...", and "Cutting Medicare to fund new entitlements won't save Medicare or reduce the deficit. Double-entry accounting didn't work for Madoff either." 

•  Don Young thought he could be funny as well: "The president's health care proposal is like giving a kid a bowl of brussel sprouts, stirring it around, and calling it ice cream. #hcsummit"

•  Mike Honda's supportive tweet seemed comical amid so many negative ones, but his positivity is definitely charming: "Health summit: glad focus is on the ppl and lowering costs, not politics. Effective bi-partisanship? I love our President! #HCR #summit"

It's interesting that amongst claims that the Summit was a media circus or, as Patrick McHenry put it, "political theatre [that] continues to blur the line between DC and Broadway," those who were denouncing the Summit as such were the ones tweeting in ways that mimicked peanut galleries at, well, circuses and plays. Nonetheless, the standout tweet of the day was a diamond in the rough, because one needed to follow Thad McCotter's posted link to get the punchline: "In a time of war and recession, this is how the duly elected leaders of the greatest nation on Earth spent their day," followed by a link to a blog post entitled: Shamwow Summit.