How the 'fire Big Bird' meme could hurt Mitt Romney

Yes, the consensus is that Romney won the debate. But what if all anyone remembers from that night is that he declared war on Sesame Street?

A protester Abingdon, Va., on Oct. 5.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has long been a cause célèbre for many Republicans, so GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney probably felt safe using it as his sole specific example of what he'd do to solve America's fiscal problems. But his decision to declare his "love" for Big Bird even as he promised to put the yellow Sesame Street icon's job in jeopardy was a bridge too far for, well, "practically every American under the age of 50," says Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon. Twitter was certainly having none of it, with parody Big Bird accounts popping up to excoriate Romney's heartlessness, and even President Obama managed to work a line into his stump speech about how Romney would "get rid of regulations on Wall Street — but he's going to crack down on Sesame Street." Williams argues that this will actually hurt Romney:

It's one thing to try to go all folksy, man of the people, we won't make poor struggling Americans pay for your highfalutin Der Ring des Nibelungen marathons and your Frontline documentaries about homosexual artists, and it is quite another entirely to go after Big Bird. You. Do. Not. Screw. With. Big. Bird.... An entire generation can trace its first understanding of death to the moment that Big Bird let it sink in that "Mr. Hooper's not coming back." And another generation learned about loss and community and resilience after 9/11 when Sesame Street had Big Bird's own nest destroyed in a storm....

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