You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
having a brain fart witnessed by the whole world.
All of us have lost our train of thought – forgotten what we wanted to say.
Maybe it happened at the grocery store and you forgot to put mayonnaise in the cart.
Maybe you blanked at the sports bar and you can’t remember who threw the TD pass that won the game.
It usually isn’t an issue. It won’t normally change the course of your job or your life.
Your momma told you if you can’t remember what you wanted to say, it probably isn’t all that important.
But when you are running for president, everything you say, or don’t say is important. When you are running for the oval office, the smallest of things are measured. Your hair is analyzed. How many times you blink per minute is dissected. Your foreign and domestic acumen are on constant display.
So when Rick Perry stumbled and bumbled through a memory lapse, it was excruciating, and potentially damaging to his faltering campaign.
As you know – Perry said he would eliminate 3 agencies. He lays out the first two just like he practiced it with his tactical team. And then he gets to the third agency and he loses it.
His brain hits a tree and explodes into a fiery mess. Unlike a one car wreck on a secluded mountain pass, this MVA happens in front of the entire globally connected world.
Perry laughs and fidgets and then says OOPS.
OOPS is not what you want your presidential candidate to ever say.
Oops I pushed the wrong button. Oops I invaded the wrong country. Oops, I pushed the wrong economic plan through Congress.
Oops is not a very reassuring campaign platform.
Even the other candidates were trying to fill in the blank for the hiccup heard round the world.
Ron Paul even offered “you mean the EPA.”
A relieved Perry said yes, even though he didn’t mean the EPA.
Perry would have said yes to the Department of Hookers and Transvestites at that point. His brain was on lock down and all fire exits were blocked.
Saturday Night Live of course spoofed the gaffe with a fake Republican debate.
The comedic moderators asked about growing the American Economy?
“The three agencies I would cut immediately,” the actor playing Perry said; “are Commerce and Education.” And then in a world where reality is stranger than fiction, the pretend Perry smiled awkwardly and looked down like a third grader whose dog ate his homework and then mumbled to himself. “uhhh, and what is the third one there?” He looks around nervously, anxiously while the audience is belly laughing. “Ah, that one got away from me,” he smiles.
More awkward pauses and then “OOPS.”
The SNL moderators pressed him for the third agency he forgot and he says “come on man, I said Oops.”
Then he tilts his head and bangs the side of his skull and says “it is up there some where. I can feel it dancing around.” He slaps his head trying to shake out the answer as if it’s trapped water inside his ear.
The real Perry did a good job with damage control on all the news shows the next day talking about not being a good debater but being a good candidate for president. He even formed a web featuring agencies you would most like to forget.
SMART.
As far as damage control goes, it was helpful, but still doubt lingers and doubt is not what the American voter likes when they are pulling the lever for a President.
Every day in a presidential campaign is an unpredictable crap shoot. Like spinning a wheel in Vegas, where it will stop, nobody knows.
There is still time for Perry to recover. There is also time for him to implode.
Which way he goes is any one’s guess.
If the Republicans want to take President Obama out next November, they need less about Cain’s women, less about Perry’s forgetfulness and more substantive discussion where issues are forefront and candidates appear presidential.
And that is crazy.