VIDEO: Mitt Romney offers Rick Perry a $10,000 bet on debate stage

Chris Moody
·Political Reporter

At the Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa Saturday, Mitt Romney bet Rick Perry $10,000 on stage that he was wrong when Perry said that Romney supported an federal individual mandate to buy health care in his book, No Apology.

You can watch the exchange below:

Romney's offer soon went viral in the social meda world, with Bluefin Media Labs estimating that it was the subject of 3,400 tweets within the first 40 minutes of the debate. Romney himself dominated the Twitter conversation on debate night, serving as the subject of 30 percent of debate-themed tweets, Bluefin estimates--though the vast majority of tweeted comments on the bet were less-than-complimentary references to Romney vat personal fortune. The $10,000 stakes represent .005 percent of Romney's net worth, according to an estimate from Yahoo News writer Zachary Roth. The figure also represents about three months' salary for an average American worker--and three times what an average U.S. family spends on groceries in a year, according to figures already circulated by the Democratic National Committee.

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