The Hill News

Organizers billed it as the "first, all-Twitter Tea Party Presidential Debate," but several of the top-tier candidates didn't show up on Wednesday.

Newt Gingrich and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) participated through official campaign accounts.

Former governors Mitt Romney (Mass.), Tim Pawlenty (Minn.) and Jon Huntsman (Utah) were no-shows.

Although Pawlenty was previously announced as a participant, a scheduling conflict precluded his ability to join in, according to Dustin Stockton, media director for host organization TheTeaParty.net. Stockton blamed himself for what he called "miscommunication" with Pawlenty's campaign.

Other participants included businessman Herman Cain, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

The debate, hosted by Glenn Beck TV host S.E. Cupp, included opening statements, five opening questions from Cupp, individual questions fro! m the public and closing statements all made through Twitter.

Cupp opened with a question on the debt ceiling, and also hit on spending cuts, jobs, U.S. intervention in Libya, jobs and the role of the Tea Party.

"As Pres, if you could enact any policy to fix the economy w/o congressional approval what would it be?" Cupp asked in her fourth question.

Responses varied between the six candidates.

Bachmann tweeted: "Repeal Obamacare."

Gingrich tweeted: "I wouldn’t even if I could b/c congressional passage offers legitimacy of the consent of the governed to the law"

Santorum tweeted: "Refuse to spend the money to implement Obamacare"

Johnson tweeted: "Change regulatory & enforcement policies that are preventing common-sense energy dev. Millions of jobs would be created."

Cain tweeted: "I would reduce the regulatory authority of executive agencies in order to ease burdens on businesses."

McCotter tweeted: "A Prez must not infringe upon the C! onstitut ionally prescribed pwrs of the separate,equal branch o gov,be it the Congress"

The event lasted 90 minutes. Stockton said more than 20,000 clicked on the livestream commentary show taking place throughout the event that was hosted by conservative radio host Rusty Humphries. The site's servers crashed briefly at the beginning of the event, but organizers were able to use a back-up server in order to continue in real time, Stockton said.

According to Cupp, the debate "averaged 180 tweets per minute, over 3800 mentions and over 4500 RTs."

A timeline of the event tweets is available at 140townhall.com. Host organization TheTeaParty.net describes itself as a central location for Tea Party activists funded by the nonprofit Stop This Insanity Inc.