Good piece at washingtonpost.com on how folks are using Twitter to cover politics. A couple of nuggets from Slate’s John Dickerson:

“If I have a thought that occurs to me, I’ll fire it off,” Dickerson says. “Sometimes it ends up being the lead of a piece, or the notion a piece gets framed around.” At the same time, he says, “there’s an element of narcissism and class clownery. A wisecrack comes into your head and you want to share it.”

Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar:

“posting my real-time thoughts, impressions and wisecracks without having to worry about fleshing them out for a proper blog post. Working within that 140-character limit — and still managing to get out your observation, your comment, your setup and punch line or what have you — is great training for a writer.”

After a slow start, I’ve come to rely on –and enjoy– Twitter almost as much as blogging. You can follow my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/smaysdotcom. You’ll need to set up an account but it’s free and takes about 2 min.