Big Bird vs Romney

2012

Date: 3 October 2012 · Place: University of Denver; Twitter · Figures: Mitt Romney, Republican nominee · Big Bird, Sesame Street puppet · Caroll Spinney, performer · Jim Lehrer, moderator · Tags: Politics, Twitter, Debate 01. I Like Big Bird At the first 2012 presidential debate Mitt Romney tells moderator Jim Lehrer he will cut the federal PBS subsidy. I like PBS, I love Big Bird, Romney says, but I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. Within minutes @FiredBigBird is registered on Twitter. The account hits 25,000 followers in an hour. Tumblr fills with Big Bird in a soup line. The Obama campaign cuts a thirty-second ad called Big Bird within four days, ranking the yellow puppet beside Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay as Romney's enemies. 02. Realtime Twitter Politics The debate logs 10.3 million tweets, the most political event ever measured by Twitter at that point. The Big Bird spike establishes the pattern that defines the next eight years: a single off-script line metabolises into a shareable joke before the candidate finishes the sentence. Sesame Workshop asks the Obama campaign to pull the ad. The campaign declines. Big Bird hosts SNL on 6 October, performed by Caroll Spinney. The 2012 election is the first in which the second screen is the primary screen. Sources • Transcript, First 2012 Presidential Debate, Commission on Presidential Debates, 3 October 2012 • Twitter Government blog, 'Dispatch from the Denver debate', 4 October 2012 • New York Times, 'Big Bird Becomes Election Issue', 4 October 2012