Shortly after President Obama announced her as his choice for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor broke new ground this morning when she became the first nominee to the nation's highest court to get flamed on Twitter.

At 9:18 am -- moments after her name emerged in media reports as the nominee, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., became the first of many members of Congress to offer their 140-character 2 cents on the woman likely to ascend to the court later this summer. McHenry's take? "Sotomayor in 2005: 'court of appeals is where policy is made.' Did Obama's nominee fail 8th grade civics?"

The GOP has made a concerted effort to dominate Twitter and other social media outlets, so it's not surprising that the first Sotomayor-related congressional tweet came from a Republican. What's more interesting is the number of tweets in support of Obama's nominee that have poured forth from Democrats. As any avid Twitter follower can tell you, congressional Dems who use the online messaging service usually sit on the sidelines during policy debates, instead reserving their tweets for chatting with followers or broadcasting where they are at a given moment.

A good example of the GOP's dominance came earlier this year in the fight over the omnibus spending bill. Back then, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., used the messaging service to effectively mount an attack on what he called wasteful spending in the bill. The attack managed to break into the national media and, arguably, ended up affecting the Senate debate. Dem tweeters largely steered clear of the back-and-forth, ceding the online space to the bill's opponents.

With the coming Sotomayor fight, however, Dems don't seem as content to let the GOP run the table on Twitter. So far today, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez have tweeted their strong support for Obama's pick. Even newly-minted Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania joined in with his own strongly pro-Sotomayor message shortly after the nominee was announced.

Whether Sotomayor will find smooth sailing in the Senate is somebody else's guess. But one thing is certain. In the age of the Twittering politician, Sotomayor's got the support she needs among Dems to face off against the GOP tweetmachine.