The atom feed is so simple that you don't even need xml mapper. Combined with the sophisticated search parameters on twitter.com, it can be as simple as below:

/* get upto 100 "tweets" posted on oct. 3, 2008,
with the hash tag vpwinner and either "biden"
or "palin" in its title */
%let home = http://search.twitter.com/;
%let search = search.atom?q=+%23vpwinner;
%let date = +since:2008-10-03+until:2008-10-03;
%let ors = %nrstr(&)ors=biden+palin;
%let lang = %nrstr(&)lang=en;
%let rpp = %nrstr(&)rpp=100;
filename page url "&home&search&date&ors〈&rpp";
data winners;
infile page lrecl=32767;
input;
prxTitle = '//i';
prxBiden = '/#vpwinner[s-:]+biden/i';
prxPalin = '/#vpwinner[s-:]+palin/i';
if prxmatch(prxTitle, _infile_) then do;
if prxmatch(prxBiden, _infile_) then winner="Biden";
else if prxmatch(prxPalin, _infile_) then winner="Palin";
output;
end;
run;
filename page clear;

proc freq data=winners;
tables winner;
run;
/* on lst
The FREQ Procedure
Cumulative Cumulative
winner Frequency Percent Frequency Percent
-----------------------------------------------------------
Biden 31 75.61 31 75.61
Palin 10 24.39 41 100.00
Frequency Missing = 27
*/