I've been chewing over the CRS's Twitter report this afternoon. Spurred on by a case of Twitter burnout, I thought I might calm the fears of ashamed netroots writers: "out-tweeting" someone is no big deal. One of my followers tweets all day long about why I should buy an inflatable boat. Nobody listens.

So while GOP congressmen may be tweeting a lot, is anybody listening? They have lots of followers. But does that matter? Are those followers paying attention? Are these representatives using Twitter to their advantage--to attract and sustain supporters and to help constituents--like Whole Foods and Southwest Airlines have used it to improve customer support and add a human face to their brand? Or are they the DC equivalent of the inflatable boat guy, incessantly linking to press releases that nobody ever reads?

We can actually answer these questions. Twitter's API and robust URL shorteners make it easy. The below is by no means a scientific study: I chose a few tweets from four most popular representatives on Twitter (all Republicans) and dug a little deeper:

-Joe Wilson has over 12,000 followers. Of six tweets with URLs (bit.ly is his shortener of choice), those URLs got 108, 415, 236, < a href="http://bit.ly/info/29k8TU">109, 43, 227 clicks, for a range of .3% to 3% of his followers. Fewer than 2% of his tweets are replies to other users.

-John Culberson has almost 13,000 followers. Of four tweets with URLs (also a bit.ly user), he got 72, 128, 346, and 243 clicks: a range of .5% and 2.6% of his followers. 56% of his tweets are replies to other users: sensational. A model public servant.

-Eric Cantor has 15,000 followers. He uses TinyURL, so we can't see his clickthrough stats. 3.7% of his tweets are replies.

-John Boehner has over 10,000 followers. Out of 4 URLs, he got 35, 20, 67, and 189 clicks: .2% to 1.8% clickthrough rate. 1.8% of his tweets are replies.

Imagine a marketing campaign that never cracked 4% penetration, and usually hovered around 1%. That's junk mail territory.

Republicans might be using Twitter a lot more than Democrats. But that doesn't count for anything unless they're getting something more out of it than simply the attention of geeks. Republicans have the followers, which gives them a good opportunity. But right now, they aren't making anything of it.