Rick Perry On Letterman

Following his brain cramp, Rick Perry went on just about every TV show he could find.

Here he is doing the Top 10 on Letterman.

I'm not a big fan of presidential candidates trying to be pop culture stars but it's the world we live in. Coming of the most painful 51 seconds in presidential debate history, this is about the best he could do.

Before I realized Ace wasn't going to be around yesterday, I did a Perry post on my own little blog about how Perry's "Look at what I did" strategy might help him.

Here's part of what I wrote.

...People are quickly going from laughing at him (which is fatal) to laughing with him (which can be powerful). It also helps that at some pint in a venue large or small, we’ve all been there. It’s an endearing and humanizing moment that basically means a chance for Perry to make a first impression for the second time.

What Perry does with the second chance in the coming days will likely be the difference between an early demise for his campaign or a another legitimate shot at the nomination.

I don’t know if the stiff and lifeless Perry we’ve seen at the debates is the “real” Perry or if the looser, quirkier one we are seeing now (and in the famous NH speech) is closer to the truth. If it’s the latter I hope he just lets that fly and sees where it takes him. Personally I’ve gotten the sense from Perry that he’s so uptight, so worried about saying the wrong thing he’s basically gone flat (maybe his apparent lack of preparation for this run was the cause of his caution). That was not the concern I had about him when he launched his bid. I thought his supposedly outsized personality would be too hot, to “Texas” for many voters. Well, cautious Rick Perry was struggling to hang on to the tail end of the 2nd tier at about 6% support before last night. If you’re going to go down, go down with your best pitch Rick. Throw it all out on the table and see if it works.

Can Perry capitalize on the opportunity? Well the window is small. There's another debate tomorrow that will focus exclusively on foreign affairs. Another brain cramp or even one of his typical extended periods where he just checks out and he's done.

posted by DrewM. at 09:20 AM

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