My friend Morra Aarons has a great piece in this morning’s Guardian in which she suggests that U.S. politicians might have a thing two to learn about social media from their counterparts in the UK.

Her perspective is easy to understand. Downing Street and the Foreign Office are now on Twitter, not to mention an MP or two. The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, now has a FriendFeed. Quite a few MPs maintain blogs. And Tory leader David Cameron has received a lot of attention for his WebCameron site.

But of course, the same can be said of politicians in the U.S. The State Department has an official blog. Congressman Culbertson regularly Twitters from the House floor. And Senator Obama has changed American politics by mobilizing an online movement.

Morra argues, however, that politicians in the U.S. aren’t listening very well. They are simply viewing their online efforts as assets and tactics to help with the present campaign — most especially with fund raising — and will put them aside once the election is decided.

Perhaps I’m not quite as cynical. If Senator Obama is elected, it’s hard to imagine that he’ll simply turn his back on the millions of supporters that he has brought together online. As Morra suggests, he might use them as a sounding board. And certainly, to the extent that Senator Obama is now at the head of a movement of Americans newly engaged in the political process, he will endeavor to keep that movement going. To so so, he’ll have to continue the dialogue.

More to the point, I’m not sure that politicians in the UK are any different from the American variety. It’s not clear to me that, on the whole, they are using social media to listen any more effectively (or sincerely) than their American counterparts.

But I suppose that I’m also more of an optimist. I believe that merely by participating in social media, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are forced to do a better job of listening. Indeed, in the UK, I and others have argued that social media is contributing to a democratisation of politics, particularly outside the constraints of election time.

Social media is reshaping how people get and share information, as well as the way they form groups and solve problems. This includes the establishment and maintenance of political movements. One could argue that the movement that is propelling Senator Obama’s campaign existed before he came on the scene, but that he has simply become its standard bearer because they have selected him.

Will we reach a tipping point? One where failing to listen and engage with constituencies more honestly, transparently and completely will result in consequences at the ballot box? It may be too soon to tell, but I suspect we will. The question for me, then, is when that day will come. Perhaps it already has.

Cross-posted at the work blog, Edelman Digital’s “Authenticities“.

UPDATE: Thanks to Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, for leaving a comment below, encouraging me to have more optimism and relating that he listens, and is better off for doing so.