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6 White House Hopefuls Use Twitter, Facebook to Share on Paris Terror Attacks

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

Six of the 14 likeliest Republican presidential candidates chose to speak out on the Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris on their Facebook and Twitter accounts, a review by The Daily Signal shows.

The other eight of the GOP’s most prominent White House hopefuls didn’t post a single related statement or tweet within four days of the massacre at the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

 

Those with something to say were Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, former Maryland neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

The other eight Republicans, who kept their peace on social media as the story developed in Paris, are former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Ohio Gov.  John Kasich, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky  and two sons of Wisconsin — Rep. Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker.

On the Democratic side of the 2016 race for president, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — the overwhelming front-runner — said nothing on Twitter or Facebook about the bloodshed in Paris. Nor did her nearest rivals, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Vice President Joe Biden.

News of multiple fatal shootings at Charlie Hebdo broke shortly before 7 a.m. EST Wednesday, initially without clear links to radical Islam.

Romney was in California but a post on the 2012 Republican nominee’s Facebook page soon was followed by the only tweet of the day from his Twitter account. It linked to that full text:

  Cruz expressed similar sentiments on Facebook at 9:11 a.m.: 

 

Jindal commented in four tweets just before 2 p.m. that would be followed by a Facebook post combining them:

 

Similarly, this post on Carson’s Facebook page late in the morning would be used for three tweets in coming hours:

 

Santorum first weighed in on Twitter just before 6 p.m. EST, following shortly with a similar Facebook post:

Later, at nearly 8:30 p.m., the former Pennsylvania senator commented again on Twitter while drawing attention to a recent poll on Americans’ concerns about terrorism.

Huckabee, meanwhile, had this to say on Facebook the first day:

Two days later, Huckabee added:

 

The risks inherent in commenting too soon were evident when Cruz had to amend, on both Twitter and Facebook, what had seemed to be good news for all the hostages in the second terror incident in Paris:

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