Mitt Romney's Twitter account needed 22 approvals during his failed presidential campaign: study

David Goldman/AP By the end of the 2012 presidential race, every @MittRomney tweet had to be approved by 22 people, according to a study by Daniel Kreiss, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina.

A new political riddle: How many presidential campaign operatives does it take to write one tweet?

Answer: In Mitt Romney's failed 2012 White House bid, far more than one can imagine.

By the end of the race, every @MittRomney tweet had to be approved by 22 people, according to a study by Daniel Kreiss, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina.

M. Spencer Green/AP Romney’s Twitter account was a horse-drawn cavalry compared to Obama's Navy Seals, Kreiss essentially concludes.

The study, released Friday, found that the campaign Twitter feeds of Romney and his opponent, President Obama, were organized very differently.

Romney’s was a horse-drawn cavalry compared to Obama's Navy Seals, Kreiss essentially concludes.

Stephan Savoia/AP Obama’s campaign structure was lean and fast, while Romney was a dithering, committee-filled bureaucracy.

Obama’s campaign structure was lean and fast, while Romney was a dithering, committee-filled bureaucracy.

“In contrast to the Obama campaign, Romney's digital team had to go through an extensive vetting process ... meaning that the temporal workflow did not match the speed of social media," writes Kreiss.

M. Spencer Green/AP The study found that just a core group of six staffers produced Obama’s tweets, enabling his campaign to 'respond to political events in the moment and in a communicative style that accords with the norms and expectations of networked publics on Twitter.'

Zac Moffatt, Romney's digital director, even joked that they had "the best tweets ever written by 17 people," according to the analysis.

The study found that just a core group of six staffers produced Obama’s tweets, enabling his campaign to “respond to political events in the moment and in a communicative style that accords with the norms and expectations of networked publics on Twitter."