A Mitt Romney flub has launched the political career of Brooklyn’s favorite fictional son: George Costanza.
Romney has attempted to quote the Seinfeld character at least three times in recent weeks, and each time failed spectacularly.
“Remember the George Costanza line?” Romney said in the Dec. 7 Republican debate. “When they’re laughing and applauding, you sit down.”
He tried the line again at a South Carolina town hall in December: “As George Costanza said, ‘when they applaud, just stop.’”
And at last night’s Arizona debate, he tried it one more time: “As George Costanza would say, when they’re applauding, stop.”
The actual line is this: “When you hit that high note, you say goodnight and walk off.” And Jerry Seinfeld said it, not George.
Here’s the exchange:
GEORGE: I had ’em, Jerry. They loved me.
JERRY: And then?
GEORGE: I lost them. I can usually come up with one good comment during a meeting but by the end it’s buried under a pile of gaffs and bad puns.
JERRY: Showmanship, George. When you hit that high note, you say goodnight and walk off.
Jason Alexander, the actor who played Constanza, didn’t take kindly to Mitt Romney’s use of Costanza’s good name. He called out the former Massachusetts governor on Twitter, while also taking a swipe at his politics.
Alexander wasn’t finished, however. He shortly launched a “Costanza 4 Prez” Twitter campaign, which was briefly a trending topic on Twitter this morning.
We can only imagine the opening line of a Costanza stump speech: “My name is George. I’m unemployed and live with my parents.”
We’ve collected the best of Alexander’s “Costanza 4 Prez” tweets in the Storify below.