Obama continues to mention Big Bird in attacking Romney on PBS

President Obama continued to mention Big Bird in attacking Mitt Romney over vowing to cut PBS funding, even as Sesame Street asked both campaigns to stop using its characters and trademark products in attack ads.

At a campaign speech at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday afternoon, Obama noted that during the first presidential debate, about a week earlier, Romney had promised to cut funding to PBS.

"When he's asked how he'll cut the deficit he says he can make the math work by eliminating local public funding for PBS," Obama said. "Now, by the way, this is not new. This is what he's been saying every time he's been asked the question: 'Well, we can cut out PBS.' So for all you moms and kids out there, don't worry, somebody's finally getting tough on Big Bird. Who knew that he was driving our deficit?"

Obama went on to mention specific Sesame Street characters in attacking Romney.

"So he's decided we're going after Big Bird and Elmo is making a run for the border and Oscar is hiding out in a trash can. Gov. Romney wants to let Wall Street run wild again, but he's going to bring down the hammer on Sesame Street," Obama continued. "Look, that's not leadership, that's salesmanship."

Obama's attacks came the same day that the president's campaign released an ad attacking Romney for wanting to cut PBS funding that featured Sesame Street's Big Bird. Later in the day Sesame Street released a statement asking the campaign to pull down the ad. A few hours after it released that statement, Sesame Street updated its statement asking both Obama's campaign and Romney's campaign to not use any of its characters or trademark products.

During the first presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday, Romney said PBS funding was one of the programs he would cut if elected president.

"I like PBS. I love Big Bird. Actually, I like you, too," Romney said to debate moderator Jim Lehrer, the host of PBS's "NewsHour," during the debate. "But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for."

The Obama campaign has repeatedly attacked Romney over that promise, regularly saying that the former Massachusetts governor is targeting Big Bird.

---