Our political Quote of the Day comes from Mark McKinnon’ writing in The Daily Beast about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s forgetting his own talking points at last nights GOP Presidential debate:
Rick Perry is now the official Charlie Brown of presidential candidates. He reminds me of the kid who got held back in high school. Even though he’s been there longer than the rest of the class (or governor for 10 years), he still doesn’t know the answers.
It’s one thing to not be able to tick off all of Mitt Romney’s 59-point economic plan. Or even a 10-point plan. But when you can’t get past two in a three-point plan, you’re done. Disqualified.
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Perry is now a dead man walking. He’ll go through the motions to save face, but he won’t get a single new voter. And he will quickly lose the ones he had. Once they’re laughing at you, you’re finished. Perry supporters Wednesday night were running out in the dark and pulling out yard signs.
AND:
The debate was substantive and full of relevant and tough questions.
But, there’s only one story from Wednesday night. Last rites for Rick Perry. There will be no resurrection. No second act. He will join the political hall of fame of presidential losers from Texas like John Connally and Phil Gramm, who started with bang and went out with a whimper and no delegates.
Perry’s problem is not just that moment. His problem is that he has come across from the get-go as an overhyped, well-financed candidate who didn’t seem to be willing or able to do his homework. Many of us who do live performances or talks have had bad moments where we flinch. With Perry, his bad moments have become a pattern.
He has a big campaign bankroll. He can use it and hang in there.
But a lot of it would now have to be used to play catch up. On YouTube. From that unusual speech in New Hampshire coupled with his earlier debate performances, coupled with his being unable to remember one of the three agencies he says he wants to eliminate.
It’s the context. In the totality, Rick Perry proved to be hype, money, pepperer with lots of advance ideological idolization — but not ready for Prime Time.
Or Republican debates.
And if current standards — fair or not– of how candidates appear in public are applied to him, not ready for the Oval Office.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.