Use of Big Bird in The United States Presidential Election, 2012
During the first presidential debate on October 3, 2012, Mitt Romney used Big Bird as an example of spending cuts he would make to reduce the federal budget deficit. Romney told the moderator, Jim Lehrer, "I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to – I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That's number one."
Barack Obama’s campaign later released a satirical advertisement which described Big Bird as an "evil genius" and "a menace to our economy", and depicted Romney as more concerned with cracking down on Big Bird than on white collar criminals such as Bernie Madoff and Ken Lay.
Sesame Workshop asked that both campaigns remove Sesame Street characters from campaign materials, stating on their website: “Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns.”
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