After Big Bird and Binders, It’s Horses and Bayonets

If the first presidential debate will be remembered for Republican candidate Mitt Romney's catchphrase on Big Bird and the second on his 'binders full of women', the final debate is all about antique weaponry. Charge!

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK3ORgw-h_4]

If the first presidential debate will be remembered for Mitt Romney’s threat to kill Big Bird and the second on his ‘binders full of women‘, Barack Obama stole the show in the third debate.

Republican candidate Romney criticized the current administration for underfunding the U.S. Navy and Air Force:

“Our Navy is old – excuse me, our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission. We’re now at under 285. We’re headed down to the low 200s if we go through a sequestration. That’s unacceptable to me.”

“I want to make sure that we have the ships that are required by our Navy. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time since it was founded in 1947.”

President Obama’s scathingly sarcastic answer caused one of the debate’s few laughters among the audience:

“You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.”

It took nine whole minutes for someone to set up the first “horses and bayonets” tumblr site and tweet about it, according to The Atlantic. Within hours, Obama supporters set up the website Cavalrymen for Romney. Horses and bayonets was the top rising search phrase on google during the debate, according to Politico. Dozens of Facebook groups were formed including one named Horses, Bayonets and Zombies. Someone even wrote a song.

One meme has the President riding a unicorn with the caption “unicorns are just horses with bayonets” and one shows him saying “We also have fewer bows and arrows and catapults”. Another one shows a Canadian Mountie asking, “What’s wrong with horses and bayonets?”

On Twitter, #horsesandbayonets quickly started trending. Relevant Organs, a faux twitter account for the Chinese government, commented:

[tweet https://twitter.com/relevantorgans/status/260578950403735552%5D

For more of the best Twitter responses to last night’s debate, check out NewsFeed’s Battle in Boca roundup.