Government and Policy 175
Social 146
Twitter Says Debate Set New Record For Political Tweets

If you were tweeting your brains out during the presidential debate on Wednesday, you weren’t alone. According to the Twitter Government account, the debate was “most tweeted about event in US political history, topping the numbers from the RNC and DNC.” Twitter has been tracking statistics throughout the election season. And given the intense interest in the debate, it’s no surprise that Twitter use was off the charts.

Let’s start at the Twitter blog, which had a roundup of the tweet action:

“The specific moments that generated the most discussion on Twitter were:
-Moderator Jim Lehrer quips “Let’s not” when Governor Romney requests a topic
-President Obama quips “I had 5 seconds” when Lehrer gives time limit
-The discussion about Medicare and vouchers”

Of course, the best response of the night may have been the quick creation of  Parody Jim Lehrer Twitter account:

Also, Big Bird got a lot of traction thanks to Romney’s attack on PBS:

“Of course, the evening’s real breakout star was a certain tall yellow Muppet. There were more than a quarter million Tweets mentioning Big Bird, following Governor Romney’s statement that he wants to cut Federal funding for PBS, the Muppet characters’ TV channel, even despite his stated fondness for the Sesame Street character. Ardent supporters of Big Bird (and public broadcasting) took to Twitter to create parody accounts such as @SadBigBird, @BigBirdRomney and @FiredBigBird.”

Finally, here are some summary tweets from the Twitter Government crew:

And the chart that gives a big overview of the Tweet flow through the night: