But what are fake Twitter followers?

I have to admit I've never gotten this social media thing. I tried Facebook for a while, I'd get all sorts of friend requests from people I didn't even know...but I guess the competition is to get as many friends as possible regardless of if they are really friends. So apparently the Obama campaign is paying money to create fake Twitter accounts to "follow" Obama. What I want to know is, why does the Obama campaign think that a lot of Twitter followers mean anything to anyone else?

RUSH: Interesting story today from USA Today: "Obama Has Millions of Fake Twitter Followers." Wait 'til you hear this. "President Obama's Twitter account has 18.8 million followers -- but more than half of them really don't exist, according to reports. A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama's crowd includes 'fake followers,' the New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased. 'The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have,' the Times reports." So they ran it on Obama's site, and 70% of his 18.8 million Twitter followers don't exist! I'll bet you the same thing's true in all these polls that show Obama at 60% likability and all that kinda stuff.

Rush didn't mention one of the final paragraphs in the article:

Republican opponent Mitt Romney has far fewer Twitter followers -- not quite 900,000 -- but it's a good bet that some of them are fake as well.

Why didn't the folks from StatusPeople check on his followers too?