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Clint Eastwood's RNC Speech Gets Nation's Attention

Actor Clint Eastwood speaks to an empty chair while addressed delegates during the Republican National Convention Thursday night. (AP)
Actor Clint Eastwood spoke to an empty chair while addressing delegates during the Republican National Convention Thursday night. (AP)

Update 8/31 @ 9:45 a.m.: The @InvisibleObama account was suspended by Twitter for a bit Friday morning, but is back.

Our original post continues:

Clint Eastwood, the Republican National Convention's big surprise speaker, had a few surprises in store himself. In the most unusual appearance at this year's convention, Eastwood had a "conversation" with President Obama, represented by an empty chair.

As NPR's Mark Memmott described in Thursday night's live blog, "The actor took shots at 'Obama' for not creating jobs, for setting a departure day for troops in Afghanistan and on other issues. He said he cried the night Obama was elected — not tears of anger or joy but because of the historic nature of the president's election. But now the U.S., he said, needs a businessman in the Oval Office."

The actor went on to to tell the empty chair, "You're crazy. You're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden. Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic party, just kind of a grin with a body behind it."

The speech immediately set the Twittersphere on fire. Within minutes an @InvisibleObama account was created and at last check (at 1:30 a.m. Friday) the account had over 33,000 followers.

Eventually, #eastwooding became a trending topic, with users posting photos of their very own empty chairs. An Eastwood/Chair 2012 campaign photo was even floating around.

And, to top it all off, Obama's campaign joined in, tweeting from the president's account their own version of #eastwooding:

So, on Mitt Romney's big night, did Clint Eastwood steal the show? What did you think of Eastwood's speech?

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Abby Elizabeth Conway Digital Producer/Editor
Abby Elizabeth Conway was formerly a digital producer and editor at WBUR.

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