With Mitt Romney given the title as winner of Wednesday night’s presidential debate, we may see a stir in current standings and predictions of who will come out victorious in the November election. Smirks and grimaces were plastered upon Romney’s face all throughout the debate, as he gained the offensive position early on. Obama on the other hand, clung to the defensive side of his policies and ideas that his opponent consistently found fault in. Even with a few more speaking minutes under his belt, the President was still considered the loser in this debate according to polls conducted by both CNN and CBS News.

 

Everything from Medicare to military spending was discussed in the event; however, what viewers often got was a criticism on the other candidate’s plan, rather than a solution to the current economic issues. Romney outlined several times how Obama plans to cut $716 billion from Medicare to pay for Obamacare, while Obama stressed that Romney’s plan to cut taxes would put the economy in an even deeper hole. Bitter backlash, frequent time violations, and occasional interruptions set a hostile tone for the night, leaving political followers on the edge of their seat, just waiting for another sharp response.

 

And while the two candidates were going at it, so were the viewers. Twitter announced Thursday morning that, “there were more than 10 million Tweets [last] evening, making [the] first of the 2012 presidential debates the most tweeted-about event in U.S. politics.”

Whether it was to cheer on a preferred candidate or mock their choice’s opponent, social media undoubtedly played an important role in hearing the viewers’ opinions on the topics discussed Wednesday night. One comment in specific caused a surge of response from Romney haters, as well as Sesame Street fans. When discussing his plans to cut program spending, Romney said to debate moderator and former PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer, “I like PBS, I love Big Bird, I actually like you too, but I’m going to stop borrowing money from China to pay for things we don’t need.”

 

After hearing Romney’s “Big Bird” rant, and overwhelming amount of tweets flooded into the Twitter nest. Over the course of one evening, over 25,000 tweets were made mentioning the famous Sesame Street icon. Now their own Twitter personalities, @BigBirdRomney and @FiredBigBird have already caught on a combined 38,000 followers, a number that continues to grow. #SaveBigBird, #BigBird, and my personal favorite, #OccupySesameStreet were just a few of the popular hashtags flying around the Internet throughout the evening’s debate.

 

It’s doubtful that this comment had anything to do with Romney’s successful outcome. However, one thing is clear: Wednesday’s presidential debate was one full of fowl politics.

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