Last night, the Republican primary candidates gathered for one of many debates taking place this election season – this time for the CNBC network. And by all accounts, it wasn’t a great night for Texas Governor Rick Perry.
While discussing what “agencies of government” he would eliminate if elected to the nation’s highest office, Perry had a bit of a brain-fart and was unable to recall the third doomed agency key to his platform.
The moderators pushed him on whether or not he could remember the rest of his point, to which Perry uncomfortably looked down, attempted to recall his point, and eventually resigned and said “oops.”
Here’s the clip, if you missed it:
That clip has been submitted to reddit by tons of users, and here are some of the headlines that they have come up with:
Watch Rick Perry’s Campaign End Before Your Eyes –
Rick Perry flushes it all down the toilet in one golden minute –
Rick Perry drops out of the Republican race –
Rick Perry just “oopsed” his way out of Republican candidacy –
The Twitter reaction has mostly piled on as well –
BREAKING: Rick Perry to drop out of race “to spend more time w/ my wife Anita and 3 children Griffin, Sydney and… Griffin and Sydney”
Between Rick Perry and the Penn State riots, last night was not a good showcase for the nation’s IQ.
There are three things I want to say about Rick Perry: he’s pompous, inarticulate and uh….uh….wait a minute, uh…i’ll tell you later.
And congratulations to Rick Perry! R. Budd Dwyer’s last appearance in front of a camera was less politically damaging.
My favorite category, “Before, During, and After,” turned up on Jeopardy tonight: 3-part answers required. Sorry, Rick Perry.
Rick Perry is clearly just a master at the cliffhanger. We need to elect him to find out the third government agency he’ll wipe out. #tease
RIP Rick Perry presidential campaign. Time of death: 8:15 p.m. Last words: “Oops.”
It appears that the third agency that Perry couldn’t get out was the Energy Department. Perry made his rounds this morning in order to try and battle the negative tide that appears to be turning against him.
“There were so many federal agencies that come to mind, that I want to get rid of, that the Energy Department would not come out,” he said in an interview with Good Morning America.
Not everyone it quick to jump on the Texas Governor, however. For this we go back to reddit, where a comment thread in the politics subsection is drawing some attention. User phreakymonkey is not pleased with the era of the soundbite:
Having a brain fart at the umpteenth debate in the middle of a relentless campaign tour doesn’t mean anything about his fitness to govern and shouldn’t, in a perfect world, affect his chances in the election. There are plenty of policy issues he can and should be taken to task for, but this sort of inane bullshit is what cost people like Howard Dean the nomination and further ensures that only emotionless rhetoric- and platitude-spewing robots will ever reach office.
He’s obviously no Rick Perry fan, but he seems to be less of a fan of the level of political discourse and candidate-choosing in the country.
Fuck Rick Perry, but fuck everybody who buys into this cynical reality show simulacrum of a political dialogue the U.S. has developed, too. If you’re the kind of person who discounts Rick Perry based on thirty seconds of footage, you’re a part of the problem.
Full disclosure, I’m no Rick Perry fan. But does that reddit user make a valid point? Does it undermine the legitimacy of our political discourse to allow something like this to absolutely ruin a campaign? Of course, the fact that we live in the age of YouTube probably doesn’t help this.
On the other hand, however, how you look on camera is important – we’ve seen that phenomena hold true since the time of JFK. And Perry did look pretty ridiculous on television last night.
And thanks to the internet, will continue to look ridiculous for the days and weeks to come.
