Twitter Spikes on Romney's $10,000 Bet Line

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sent the Twitter universe into a tizzy by offering to wager a $10,000 bet with his GOP rival.

"I’ll bet you $10K that #Romney would pay a lot more to get that moment back."

@Brucepknight

Twitter might not favor the most erudite subjects sometimes, but it is a good barometer for what an audience will react to, and one of those things that drew the most reaction was Mitt Romney's offer of a $10,000 bet during an exchange with Rick Perry during Saturday evening's Iowa GOP debate.

Only thing worse for Romney there would have been if he pulled a $10,000 bill from his pocket. #iowadebate

@TheFix

Romney offers Perry a $10,000 bet on Mitt's record on mandate? (Which was declined.) Never seen that at a debate.

@HowardKurtz

Here is an ABC News account of the exchange:

“You were for individual mandates, my friend,” Perry said to Romney, talking about President Obama’s health care program. Perry claims that Romney backed individual mandates in a book he wrote.

Romney responded, extending his hand: “You know what — you raised that before. … I tell you what. 10,000 bucks. $10,000 bet.”

“I’m not in the betting business,” Perry shot back.

According to ABC News, Mitt Romney's $10,000 line produced a 3,400 Tweet reaction. Although, many of them likely were from gleeful Romney opponents, like @Brucepknight, who according to his profile is a Democrat.

The analysts also reports that out of 43,000 messages on Twitter, Romney is the most popular subject, with 30 percent. The rest: Gingrich at 22 percent, Bachmann at 19 percent, Paul at 13 percent, Santorum at 10 percent, and Perry at 5 percent.

It should be noted that it would be difficult to tell whether the Twitter reaction was positive or negative. The main thing that was clear was that there was a load of chatter generated by it.

And the chatter might not be limited to Saturday night. According to the Huffington Post's liveblog, GOP candidate and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's campaign has already announced it has bought the website www.10kbet.com.