Talk about your #winners. Charlie Sheen joins Twitter on Tuesday and already this morning he’s closing in on 1.2 million followers, surely a record for Twitter clout. Right? Let’s take a look.

We thought we’d compare Sheen’s auspicious Twitter opening day debut with that of other notable figures on the global stage – his Holiness, the Dalai Lama and El Presidente, Hugo Chavez – both of whom picked up Tweeting in the last year to much fanfare. Here’s the tale of the tape, and it’s not even close:

Last year in February when the Dalai Lama joined the Tweeting masses we welcomed him wholeheartedly, and even offered some friendly advice. Two months later we did the same when Chavez started to Tweet under the handle @chavezcandanga. Turns out they didn’t need much help from us. Their followings have swelled by 15-fold (Chavez) and 35-fold (Dalai Lama) since that day. It should be noted that both Chavez and the Dalai Lama are growing far faster than the Twitterverse itself, which grew by an impressive 153% last year, as we calculated recently.

And what about Sheen? He’s on pace to overtake them both after his first week. Hell, it could even be today. That is if the public fascination with Sheen and his win-like-me advice doesn’t fade with the next news cycle.

Not likely. We’re even seeing venerable brands like the Red Cross piggyback on the latest trending Sheen-isms. And, he’s been well counseled, as Edmund Lee of Ad Age reports. Among the pieces of advice Sheen was given before his very first Tweet was this gem, courtesy of Ad.ly, the outfit that helped get him started:

They [Ad.ly staffers] all said he was super-excited, super-focused, totally understood the value of talking directly to his fans. And then we spent some time with him and his managers, basically saying here are some best practices: use hashtags; use Bit.ly if you’re going to link to stuff; and post photos. People love to see celebrity pictures.

As a result we get candid shots like this from his Twitpic collection:

Hmm, wonder what’s in that white aura around the Oscar?