Last weekend, Rick Perry gave a bizarre, rambling speech in New Hampshire that quickly became an “Internet sensation.” It is sort of like BadLipReading come to life.
“This is such a cool state,” Perry says, referring to New Hampshire, not “intoxication.”
How to explain this? Perry isn’t a great public speaker, but he’s usually not a slurring, incoherent one. At a National Journal panel, Democratic consultant Steve McMahon thought perhaps Perry was drunk. He sounds a bit drunk. But who gets drunk before giving a speech in New Hampshire? This isn’t the Golden Globes, this is a presidential campaign.
Republican Charlie Black suggests a different substance:
“It’s odd,” Black said of the speech. “I haven’t asked anybody in Governor Perry’s campaign about it. Look, he’s got a back problem, maybe it was back medicine … .”
“Back medicine” is more popularly known as “painkillers.” Rick Perry had back surgery last July, and he could be recovering still. Painkillers plus a drink or two could equal inappropriate giggling.
There’s one more possibility: He’s intentionally sounding like a moron because being totally out of your depth is a huge selling point for GOP voters these days.
Here’s Perry’s new ad, running in Iowa:
“If you’re looking for a slick politician or a guy with great teleprompter skills,” Perry says, “we already have that — and he’s destroying our economy. I’m a doer, not a talker.”
He’s a doer! He does things! Things that don’t involve communicating effectively! Things like taking pain medication, possibly! And he won’t read off a teleprompter, because he may not be able to read!
Maybe Perry didn’t intentionally sound wasted in a public speech in order to generate headlines highlighting his Herman Cain-like unsuitability for high office, but when you’re dealing with a “doer” like him, you can never know for sure.
(Meanwhile his tax plan is basically a massive giveaway to rich people and it’s somehow even more irresponsible than 9-9-9, which at least operates from the theory that government needs to get some revenue, from somewhere.)
