http://www.answers.com/topic/chicken-georgeChicken George was the name for a man in a chicken costume who shadowed George H. W. Bush through a portion of the 1992 U.S. presidential election.
Bush first began being called chicken by Democrats when he refused to agree to the debate format determined by the Commission on Presidential Debates. In previous years the normal pattern had been for a period of direct negotiations between the parties after the non-partisan CPD's decision. In earlier years the general consensus was that the Republicans had benefited most from these negotiations. To prevent a repeat the Clinton team thus refused to conduct any negotiations to alter the CPD rules. The Bush camp threatened to cancel all of the debates if the negotiations did not occur.
The Clinton campaign worked to portray the President as cowardly, or chicken, due to his fear of debating Clinton. On the initiative of a local Democratic organization a young campaigner crashed a Bush event in a giant chicken costume. This technique proved successful and soon the Clinton campaign was ensuring that the chicken would appear at each Bush event. The name Chicken George was a reference to a character in the Roots miniseries.