That venerable toy, the Etch a Sketch has just been handed a new lease on life, courtesy of Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom, who on Wednesday expressed confidence the campaign would hit the "reset button" after the nomination and redraw Romney as a moderate candidate.

"Everything changes," he explained on CNN, "It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again."

A lovely visual, but I was amazed at it's impact: Almost immediately, we saw Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich gleefully brandishing Etch A Sketches at campaign events, while Romney rushed to contain the damage by promising to be a true conservative forever.

Having worked on a few political campaigns at the local level, I can just imagine that as soon as Fehrnstrom made his comment, staffers for Santorum and Gingrich were dispatched to toy stores to grab up as many of the toys as possible -- clearly they make great visual aids -- while the speech writers went to work on how to integrate the toys into their candidates' speeches.

But what amazed me even more was reading that the price of Etch a Sketch's stock soared on the power of this news event. Why saw that coming?

And here's an article from CNN that discusses how this image is going to be hard for Romney to "shake." (ha ha)

Meanwhile, Santorum's efforts to capitalize on the gaffe have landed him in the news. He actually said it would be better to vote for Obama than an "Etch a Sketch Republican" like Romney.

Oooh,I'm not sure there's anything more entertaining on TV these days than watching this year's campaign antics!! By the way, does anyone still have their old Etch A Sketch buried in a toybox somewhere? Don't think I do.

My etch-a-sketch is long gone. Funny how someone can ignite such controversy by opening their mouth before thinking!!!

Social media is certainly changing the political climate! Back before the internet, that comment probably wouldn't have aroused such a response. But I'm glad we have the internet, and Twitter, etc., because it allows us to see what's going on and participate like we haven't been able to before. The power of social media is awesome!

I remember playing with the etch a sketch. Great fun. And every word the presidential candidates utter is echoed throughout the world. They're disected and reexamined under the most powerful
microscopes! What a trip!