If Perry needed to follow his performance in last nights debate by demonstrating his logical and rhetorical bona fides, his performance at CPAC today in Orlando does not qualify.
Governor Perry asserted that Republicans don’t want the “slickest candidate or the smoothest debater.” Presumably the “slick” pejorative applies to people who are more articulate and more persuasive than, well than Rick Perry. It seems increasingly clear that you don’t have to be slick to get the upper-hand on Rick Perry but that’s really not the point.
During the Bush years Republicans endured an abiding frustration with the President’s oratorical handicap. There were exceptions of course but circumstance often played a role; his declaration that the 911 attackers would soon hear all of us as he stood on a pile of rubble in lower Manhattan for example. No one will remember George W. Bush as a great speaker although we wanted him to be.
Reagan was great for so many reasons and much of what we remember about him was the way he spoke to us and spoke for us. Kennedy, Churchill, Lincoln; would Perry consider then “slick”? They were great in no small part because of their speech. If you were to strip the speaking and debating elements out of Obama’s schedule, what you would have left would be mainly smoke breaks, golf and giving tax-payer dollars to failing companies run by campaign donors.
In modern America where the media have shrugged off the pretense of being anything other than blindly devoted to liberalism, the ability for the conservative standard-bearer to speak clearly and powerfully is that much more critical. We all know it. We are drawn to future leaders like Marco Rubio, who seem blessed with that natural ability to connect and inspire.
This is a mindless, sour shot reminiscent of his formulation that Bush = Yale and Perry = Texas A&M. It’s bad rhetoric but more importantly it’s poor thinking. Republicans want someone who can inspire us, lead us and lead the world. That will require the best orator and the best thinker we can distill. Perry is showing himself to be neither.
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