It might be a weird thing for a journalist to say, and I know it’s an entirely predictable statement for a 21-year-old college student but here it is: I hate politics.

It just seems like those old, white guys bear little relevance to my life, won’t listen to what I have to say, and will never change their ways.

I voted in the 2008 Presidential election and haven’t seen a ballot since. Yes, I am slightly ashamed by that fact. I wish I had more time to track politics, but it just seems like no matter how often I vote or email my opinions to congressmen, they’ll just keep doing things the way they’ve been done.

Still, I couldn’t keep the tiny rootlets of interest from sprouting as the herd of Republican candidates flocked to the 2012 election. These are the people who have the potential to unseat President Barack Obama (who, I have to say, is doing a pretty decent job), and I do find it sort of interesting (and terrifying) to picture what the next four years would be like with one of them in charge.

I’ve been paying a little attention — enough to know Michelle Bachmann is a moron and Rick Perry’s anti-gay “Strong” video on YouTube has more “dislikes” than Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” but I felt like it was time for more. Now that I knew the faces of the Republican Party, I wanted to know their opinions.

So when the New Hampshire Republican Debate showed up on my television, I switched it on, popped some popcorn and watched the
show unfold.

Surprisingly, I understood most of what they were talking about, although it was hard with their speed-of-lightning question dodging. As a debate-watching noob, however, I found that it was hard to really process what each candidate was saying without rewinding my DVR, so all I really walked away with was a general sense of what each candidate was like.

But what really made the election fun for me to watch was, of course, Twitter. If you follow me (@arielfab), then you might have noticed my explosion of tweets as the #NHdebate ensued.

Tweeting my own opinions made me enjoy the debate way more — I paid closer attention to the candidates’ responses, scouring them for inconsistencies (spoiler alert: there were a lot) so I could post a witty (or at least mildly punny) comment.

Certain things annoyed me — Perry seemed like a slimeball, and Newt Gingrich’s claim that Obama was making “desperate efforts to create a radical European socialist model” made Gingrich seem pretty desperate himself.

Other bits were pretty funny. Ron Paul owned Gingrich with his comment about enlisting, while Paul himself got, as one tweeter quipped, “Santorumed.”

Still, the best part about keeping an eye on Twitter during the debate was everyone else’s tweets. There were quite a few gems throughout the night, especially from one of my favorite Twitter accounts: @LOLGOP.

Here are a few of my favorites:

“Republicans love that Santorum is succeeding the old-fashioned way: attacking the rights of gays and women.”

“I’ll never forget that day that friendly snowman came to life and slowly became Newt Gingrich.”

“After eight years of Bush/Cheney, you thought: No way the GOP can out embarrass themselves now. And then you met these guys.”

“Rick Perry. Reminding you why you love President Obama since September 2011.”

I have to say, however, that my favorite tweet of the night came from @Dawn_KJ shortly after Jon Huntsman whipped out some phrase in Chinese:

“Honey badger Huntsman don’t care. He’ll speak Chinese. He don’t give a sh*t!”

Combining politics with Internet sensations like the elusive Honey badger?

Mega win.

What I really liked about following the #NHdebate hashtag during the live debate was being able to see the commentary from people who really knew what they were talking about. @LOLGOP, for example, caught Romney in a handful of lies, and made sure to call him on it, which meant I walked away from the debate actually learning something about the candidates.

Like how Romney is awful, but will most likely win the nomination, especially considering the total lack attacks on him during this debate. Or the precious few differences between Obamacare and Romneycare. Or how many jobs Romney created … in China.

I learned that I really don’t like Romney.

Honestly, if there was one person who won this Republican debate, it wasn’t forerunner Romney or the college-student go-to Ron Paul. No, the person who came out of this debate looking better than ever and even more likely to win the 2012 election by a landside?

Barack Obama.