While GOP candidate Mitt Romney sent shockwaves throughout the "Twitter-verse" and Facebook when he announced that he would cut government funding for Sesame Street, it appears that the beloved children's show is in no danger of cancellation.
Wednesday's debate centered on Domestic policy, and specifically focused on economic policy. Moderator Jim Lehrer, a PBS host, conducted the questioning. Romney asserted, "I'm sorry, Jim. I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you too. But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it."
According to Twitter, Romney sparked 17,000 tweets per minute that mentioned Big Bird, which contributed to record-breaking traffic on the site.
Twitter spokesperson Rachel Horowitz states, "Tonight's debate was the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history, topping the numbers from the RNC and DNC."
On Facebook, Romney scored 11 percent more mentions than Obama.
In an interview with CNN reporter Soledad O'Brien, the executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Sesame workshop, Sherrie Westin, responded to fears that the show might come to an end.
"Sesame Workshop receives very, very little funding from PBS. So, we are able to raise our funding through philanthropic, through our licensed product, which goes back into the educational programming, through corporate underwriting and sponsorship. So quite frankly, you can debate whether or not there should be funding of public broadcasting. But when they always try to tout out Big Bird, and say we're going to kill Big Bird - that is actually misleading, because Sesame Street will be here."
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