Ok, so it was the most inopportune time to have one of those proverbial brain farts. I agree and am not going to argue that point. But having said that, I still see something in the man that would allow me to vote for him without giving it a second thought. I’ve been behind him since day one of his campaign so I was glad to hear it when he said that his recent major mistake in the debate won't be the end of his presidential bid. "Oh, shoot, no," Perry told The Associated Press Thursday morning, a day after he stood on stage unable to remember the third federal department he would cut. He was asked if his campaign, struggling to regain traction, could survive. "This ain't a day for quitting nothing." Perry says others have made similar mistakes and that the screw up will humanize him.” Adding, "The president of the United States said there were 57 states one time. Everybody makes mistakes." He’s right, everyone makes mistakes, and we learn a lot about the individual when we watch how those mistakes are then dealt with. Are others blamed as in the case of our current president, or is responsibility taken by the man and corrections made?
Those of us watching Wednesday's debate watched as Perry said he had three agencies he would cut, and then we all cringed, even if not a supporter, when he couldn't remember them. "Commerce, Education and the — what's the third one there? Let's see," the Texas governor said. So it was out on the road beginning the next day on a mission to convince the country he was in on the joke after his disastrous debate performance while even his supporters worried aloud about the damage to his already hobbling campaign. What I find admirable about the man is the fact that Perry didn't try to sugarcoat the fallout from his minute-long stammer that apparently caused in some, concerns that he is not up for the job. To me, it shows character, in that it takes a certain amount of guts to get back out there after a major political faux pas. So he spent the day after the night before on a media blitz trying to laugh about the Wednesday evening debate where he struggled embarrassingly to remember one of the three federal departments he wants to abolish, ending with a grinning, "Oops.”
The minute-long exchange was replayed throughout the day and into the evening on television, and it has already been labeled one of the worst debate blunders in recent memory. "That's pretty brutal isn't it?" Perry said on Fox News. "I stepped in it. I think some of it is still stuck on my feet." He doesn't have much time to clean up. There are fewer than eight weeks until the first nominating contests start and voters are looking for the best candidate to go head-to-head against Barry “Almighty.” Perry acknowledged it was a tough moment as he flailed during the televised debate. Perry squirmed while his opponents and the audience laughed and debate moderator John Harwood incredulously said, "You can't name the third one?" "It wasn't even on the tip of my tongue," Perry said. Perry has been the first to acknowledge he's a terrible debater but has hoped he would improve. "I hate debates," he said in Des Moines last week. "I used to hate spinning in aircraft. Finally I did it, and I did it enough that I finally got pretty good at it. So hold on, maybe I'll get better at debates, too.”
Perry is a tough campaigner. He has never lost and election - and has avoided debating in state races - and is the longest serving governor of Texas. He is a has proven a charismatic campaigner in smaller settings common in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina - three states that start the nominating process and three states where he must do well. Yet some Republicans, even prominent Perry supporters, were wondering whether the Texan can survive his latest misstep. "As far as his character, I haven't waivered on that," state Rep. Peter Silva, a member of Perry's New Hampshire steering committee, said Thursday, but added: "You can't say this is a good thing. He shot himself in the foot." Others weren't as generous. "It's over for him," said Steve Schmidt, a Republican political strategist who ran Sen. John McCain's 2008 campaign. Personally I think that’s a little over the top especially when coming from someone who ran a losing campaign. Who was out there telling Barry that he should throw in the towel when he, as Gov. Perry reminded us, said he’d been to 57 states? No one. The excuse given was that poor Barry was tired.
Still, the extended exchange, while it will provide easy fodder for attack ads, can be countered with any number of Barry gaffs, which there have been many, anytime he’s ever strayed to far from his ever-teleprompter. On Capitol Hill, Perry's brain freeze was widely regarded as a grave development for his already struggling campaign. In private, Republicans were wondering if they had just seen the beginning of the end for Perry. Sen. James Inhofe, a Perry backer, phoned his colleagues to downplay the exchange and called Perry's supporters to try to stop an exodus. "He's a human being, he just proved that last night," the Oklahoman said. "Right now, he's joking around about it and it seems to be favorably received from a lot of people I've heard from." Yet Inhofe was still cringing. "It was very embarrassing to Rick Perry and to others who certainly supported him, and I'm sure that many of his Republican opponents are rejoicing," said Inhofe. If they are, as Sen. Inhofe says, rejoicing, then by doing so, they are proving, much better than other could, that they possess no more character than does our current president.
Speaking of stepping in it, the last two times the American people went with the “smooth” candidate look what has happened. We went with “BJ” Clinton who was identified as being smooth by the state-controlled media and the consequences were horrific for us as a country. His anemic response to a growing terror threat essentially resulted in the attacks of September 11, 2001, a massive amount of military secrets were simply handed over the Communist Red China, there was a very rapid acceleration of the of government sponsored shenanigans via the Community Re-Investment Act (CRA) that resulted in the financial collapse of 2008, there was the first attempt, albeit a failed attempt, to seize control of our healthcare. And out of fear of being redundant, I don’t think that I really need to go over all of the damage that our current “smooth” president has inflicted upon us. And for all those who would call Reagan “smooth,” I would disagree. What Reagan was, was real, and he was genuine. What you saw was what you got. He was the same in private as he was in public. And I get the same sense about Perry. Not that I mean to say he’s the second coming of Reagan, because he’s not. But he’s a man of character. Much more so that Barry. So I’ll be sticking with him.
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