Perry: very funny
The reason I’ve never dismissed Rick Perry as a potential winner of the GOP nomination for president, despite his decline in the polls, and continue not to do so, is that he has so many fundamental strengths. Among these is his long track record as an excellent campaigner, and one who has never yet lost an election.
One way to measure the fundamental strength of a candidate and his campaign is to see how they deal with adversity. Rick Perry’s and his campaign staff’s response to this “brain-freeze” moment has been nothing less than pitch-perfect. Instead of running from it, or being defensive, they immediately decided to use it for laughs and to emphasize the core point of Rick Perry’s remarks in the first place: There are too many federal agencies. The federal government is too big.
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His appearance on the David Letterman show last night (embedded below) was a hit-it-out-of-the-park stroke. He defined himself as someone who can laugh at himself and is not in the least uptight. He also delivered his lines like a pro (actually better than a lot of pros I could name). Bottom line: he exuded likeability and humanity. It remains to be seen how this whole thing shakes out, obviously. But Perry and his campaign have come darn close to turning what so many observers thought was a campaign-ending disaster into a net-positive, and that is saying something indeed.
