Nice idea. Hopefully we’ll see more of this in the UK. Reuters reports on six Republican White House hopefuls who took part in the first presidential debate on Twitter.

The event gave those taking part the opportunity to raise their profile and build their social media following.

However, as Reuters notes the format may have been groundbreaking, but the answers maybe less so as Twitter’s 140-character limit squeezed those long waffle filled answers down to sound bites. That said nothing wrong with using multiple tweets to answer. Those 280 characters should do the trick:

“Government doesn’t create jobs. Businesses create jobs. Government needs to get out of the way,” former pizza executive Herman Cain responded when asked if a president can create jobs without expanding the federal government.

“I will not rest until Obamacare is repealed. You can take it to the bank,” tweeted Representative Michele Bachmann, using the derisive term favored by critics of President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, ” Reuters reports.

As well as questions from Twitter users it featured questions from moderator, the conservative columnist, SE Cupp.

The debate averaged 180 tweets a minute and racked up 3,800 mentions and 4,500 retweets with Bachmann scoring the most mentions and gaining the most new followers. Cain was most retweeted.