Texas Governor Rick Perry made an all-time flub in last night’s GOP Presidential debate, which you can view here. His inability to recall one of the three federal agencies that he himself has pledged to disband if elected President (the answer to his own question was “Department of Energy”) was the most egregious example yet of his fatal flaw as a candidate.
As our friends at “The Fix” explain:
Given his previous struggles, the question must then follow: is this the end?
At least one top Perry fundraiser said it was indeed. “Perry campaign is over. Time for him to go home and refocus on being governor of Texas,” the fundraiser said. “Really unfortunate. His policies are a solid roadmap for the economy. But, clearly he can’t articulate them in a coherent way.”
Tweeted GOP strategist Tony Fratto: “Perry can end his campaign right now.”…
…people simply need to have faith that a candidate has the smarts and the convictions to be president, and the way they present themselves matters immensely. Perry’s flub just completed the picture of a guy who isn’t ready for primetime, can’t enunciate his platform and folds under pressure. Those aren’t qualities people want in a president.
You quite simply don’t see moments like that from candidates that are presidential material. A gaffe is a gaffe, but this was a GAFFE.
We wrote on Sunday that Mitt Romney’s campaign was doing its best to stick a fork in Perry, so it certainly won’t help that Perry is making their job so easy. Perry’s faceplant is also a problem for several high-profile Colorado Republicans, particularly Rep. Mike Coffman, who just one week ago was announced as Perry’s Colorado Campaign Chairman.
What say you, Polsters? Poll follows…
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This is going to help Perry.
http://www.coloradopols.com/sh…
A “GAFFE” for Perry would be to say something like taxes need to go up, or pregnancy and medical decisions are private, personal decisions, or that we don’t need to spend more on the military budget than the next 10 countries added up, or that the war of choice in Iraq was a mistake, or that open borders are good. Those would be GAFFEs.
This is just him looking …. flustered. Just a regular guy. ANd the lamestream, left wing media is going to make too big a deal out of it.
He sure is fun to watch.
But don’t misunderestimate the potential of an idiot.
This guy makes Bush look like Stephen A Douglas.
make this guy up if you tried.
TEXAS US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
I just can’t stand here in front of this crowd and not just love on you a little bit.
INTERCUT with CLOSE UP of slurry hand movements and odd smiling jaw wiggles.
The post election analyses that will be done will have to spend a lot of ink on describing a campaign and a candidate that began with such high levels of expectation and then proceeded to implode in slow motion.
It should be a sobering reminder of the need to have great skepticism of PR hype and superficiality. My God, what if this guy actually got elected and had to interact with world leaders?
Sarah Palin
Michele Bachmann
Herman Cain
Ron Paul
Rick Santorum
Newt Gingrich
Did I miss anyone?
In this election cycle? Probably missed several.
Maybe we should expand the question to likely cabinet members – like Palin for Secretary of State.
Plenty of reasons to not want him elected. But the guy is smart and thoughtful.
On that we disagree. He may be smart but he’s also an egotistical smart ass . Did you see his attempt to get the best of the moderator last night (I can’t remember her name)?
He was like that years ago when he was in congress and I was a lowly consultant working in D.C.
Don’t you know? Gingrich is a swell guy, and he’s a historian not a lobbyist.
He still has millions to stay afloat. He can get through a caucus or two but if the money dries up between now and then. Good night, Perry.
You’re right.
If Cain is able to stay in and rally troops to his side, Perry’s ‘everyman’ shtick will keep him in a few contests until he fails in them and can bow out gracefully.
One of the biggest articles of faith with the hard right is that the departments of Education, Commerce and Energy must go away. This has been a mantra with them for decades.
Perry flubbed this, and flubbed it bad. This makes it crystal clear that he is simply paying lip service to the hard right. It’s like a self-professed Christian being unable to name all three members of the Holy Trinity. “Lessee, there’s God, there’s Jesus, and then there’s, uh, uh, there’s, there’s, uh, Paul! Ha ha, uh, not Paul, but, uh, uh…. Sorry, uh, I can’t remember.”
He didn’t look like an idiot simply to us, he looked like someone who isn’t a True Conservative ™. This is the end of his career in politics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
My favorite:
Admiral Stockdale, VP candidate with Ross Perot.
The Ministry of Silly Walks of course!
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is fear. Fear and surprise. Um, our TWO chief weapons are fear and surprise. And a fanatical devotion to the Pope. Our THREE weapons …”
Would love to hear why anyone thinks Perry can recover from the “Oops!”isode.
Being stupid has never been a complete bar to electoral victory. And I’m not sure this even fits in that category.
He lost his train of thought. When that happens to “regular” people, they do almost exactly what he did.
Proving that he’s just a regular guy. We hate politicians – and he’s working hard not to look like one even though politics is his lifelong career.
But we like regular guys. Joe the plumber (not called Joe, and not a plumber) was liked because he was (seen as ) just a regular guy. President Bush was not perceived as any kind of rocket surgeon. Didn’t stop him from being his party’s nominee, or President.
President Reagan (tax raising RINO that he was) wasn’t always sharp as a screen door.
Skip ahead to 1:22:14 for his closing comment when he asks rhetorically if we want to return to the policies of weakness of the past four years. It was 1984, and he was just about to complete his first term.
Keep listening and try and see if the drive down Pacific Coast Highway has anything to do with something.
I realize he was already the nominee – but he went on to win 49 states. All because he deflected any question about his age and mental fitness with a joke.
http://youtu.be/EF73k5-Hiqg
Consider the Perry is done crowd refudiated.
But I agree with MADCO on this. Americans like good old boys with charm and they don’t like intellectuals that speak well and debate well.
I voted no, not because I don’t think that Perry will eventually lose, but I don’t think last night’s performance was the final nail.
I do hope and pray he pulls it out and gets the nomination. I hope and pray. That would be almost as good as a Cain or Bachman nomination…
Which effectively means a late comer, about which nothing is known.
Say….Bruce Willis.
Parry is the best funded Not-Mitt in this race. Cain might be getting bucks off of his harassment scandals but he has NO field staff in early primary states. Cain’s campaign director is working with a vapor-where concept of grass roots. They don’t have boots on the ground and truly seem to think Hermies Army will just magically coalesce come Christmas.
And, as much as I hate to state it, there are a heckuva lot of good ole boys that just cain’t get on board with Herman. Herman is a joke to all these Johnny Reb wannabes.
Parry stepped innit and he’s staying because of TheCall support & his TX backers & every john looking for a roll with this BigGov hooker. Parry has gotta get some serious coin before he’s tossed outta Austin so it’s all about his next gig and buidling his influence back-sratchin’ network.
But that “oops” was fatal. It was a jaw-dropper.
You don’t want a guy with his finger near the nuclear trigger saying “oops.”
http://youtu.be/xUPKKbmWMZ8
And she was elected. No problem.
Mostly what MADCO said.
The Republican base is a bunch of Jesus freak retards who don’t think intelligence is necessary. Perry is a Jesus freak retard without intelligence, so his brief brain freeze is hardly disqualifying.
And I mean this with no offense to those who have real mental disabilities.
the reason…$72,000,000. 17 million in his campaign account and 55 million in a Superpac working for him.
… and he’s lucky the primaries haven’t begun. But I think he’s mortally wounded.
The money will keep flowing because the folks need the checks. But I cannot believe he will survive until the convention. His numbers are still sliding and I think there won’t be much new money forthcoming.
…and coming on strong around the second turn…can it be?…it’s Newt! I guess there is one more brief stop before Romneyville.
I think Perry’s fundraising will crater after this performance. There is no one left on stage to compete with Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee at this point.
Romney is going to be very good for America as President. Even you Democrats will feel the difference in your wallets. Romney gives me hope for change I can believe in!
You get what you deserve. Republicans have been turning away thinking people in favor of empty suit pretty boys who will do what their masters say. They’ve got that in Perry. Now the problem with their plan is clear. Maybe the shrinking base of Republican voters will go for him, but most of us out here like to think our President has a brain and could make decisions in a pinch under pressure. The real thing here, other than that Perry is just an unbelievable lightweight, is that not a lot of people will look at this guy and be willing to put their lives in his hands. Oops!!!
I bet you $100 Romney is not the next president.
There’s a 50/50 chance this guy already owes you $50. You might as well bet a thousand, or a million, with this guy…
because Romney and his banking henchmen will make them lighter.
You win.
Ha, Ha.
to take that 3am phone call?
He makes Bush look good which is something that I thought was an impossible feat.
to take the 3 p.m. phone call …
… and as a voice-over: “Oops.”