Friday night, October 29, Republican presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry delivered a speech in New Hampshire. This video shows highlights from the speech, which has to rate as one of the most bizarre political speeches ever. With any luck, it will be the last speech Perry makes. I don’t know what the man was on — I give him the benefit of the doubt in assuming he was on something — but his handlers should never have let him go on stage. I suggest they cancel the rest of his campaign and send him home before he embarrasses himself or the state of Texas any further.
In the wake of the fiasco, an Austin, Tex., political science professor suggested Perry was just trying to introduce a little humor to set himself apart from the straight-laced Mitt Romney and pointed out that the viral video is only 8 minutes of clips from a 25-minute speech. He did, however, speculate that this speech may prove to be the equivalent of Howard Dean’s infamous and campaign-ending “Dean Scream.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7M4gz97Y9W8]
I don’t know if you get MSNBC, Pied, but Rachel Maddow had a lot of fun with this on her show last night. It was indeed a bizarre performance by Perry. Whatever the antonym for “gravitas” is, that’s what it was.
I figure it was the result of one of two things.
1. Some advisor pointed out to Perry that Herman Cain was beating him by being humorous and candid and this was Perry’s attempt to go the same route.
2. Perry was either drunk or affected by medication that had the same effect.
I missed Maddow’s take, but I have the utmost respect for her. I’ll look for that on YouTube. Time Magazine mentioned that Perry had had back surgery earlier this year and some people thought he might still be on heavy medication for that. My first thought was Valium and maybe a few drinks, deliberately trying to loosen up a little (and overdoing it) because his debate appearances had been so halting. I’m thinking now he’d better spread the story that he was having an adverse reaction to something, because the idea that he was sober and acting that way intentionally isn’t very appealing either.
P.S. Found the Maddow commentary. She was much more “gentle” in her assessment than many I’ve seen.