The third and final presidential debate commenced last night, and both President Obama and Governor Romney showed they’ve tired of playing Mr. Nice Guy, bringing a pocketful of memorable zingers to the table.

Though last night’s debate wasn’t as popular as the first two, it probably had the most interesting one-liners delivered by both parties.  According to Twitter, the volume of tweets during last night’s debate was only at 6.5 million, remarkably lower than the second with 7.2 million tweets, and the first with 10 million tweets, a record for any U.S. political event to date.  But the social success of the first presidential debate has a lot to do with Mitt Romney’s mention of Big Bird–not much of a zinger, but a memorable comment nonetheless.

In any case, the third debate deserved more tweets than it actually racked up, as Obama and Romney really went all out with their one-liners.

Best quotes from last night’s debate

On foreign policy

Romney: “I have clear eyes on this. I’m not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia or Mr. Putin and I’m certainly not going to say to him, ‘I’ll give you more flexibility after the election.’ After the election, he’ll get more backbone.”

Obama: “Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaeda is a threat because a few months ago when you asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia – not Al Qaeda – you said Russia. The 1980s are now calling and asking for their foreign policy back.”

On military funding

Romney: “We get to a balanced budget within eight to 10 years. We do it by reducing spending in a whole series of programs. By the way, number one I get rid of is Obamacare.”

Obama:“Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships.”

On Al Qaeda

Romney: “I congratulate him on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership in Al Qaeda, but we can’t kill our way out of this mess.

Obama: “Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you agreed that we have been successful in going after Al Qaeda, but I have to tell you that your strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map and is not designed to keep Americans safe or to build on the opportunities that exist in the middle east.”

On Afghanistan and Iraq

Romney: “We don’t want another Iraq. We don’t want another Afghanistan. That’s not the right course for us.”

Obama: “You say that you’re not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq, but just a few weeks ago you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now. You’ve said that first we should not have a timeline in Afghanistan then you said we should. Now you say maybe or depends, which means not only were you wrong, but you were also confusing and sending mixed messages both to our troops and our allies.”

On China

Romney: “I want a great relationship with China. China can be our partner, but that doesn’t mean that they can just roll all over us and steal are jobs on an unfair basis.”

Obama: “Well Gov. Romney is right, you are familiar with jobs being shipped overseas because you invested in companies that were shipping jobs overseas.”