Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry did the only thing he could do to overcome his worst-yet debate embarrassment. He joined in the fun.
Perry’s appearance on The David Letterman Show, where he narrated a self-deprecating Top Ten list, was a very smart move. He also received a helping hand from health and science influencers, like the New York Times health columnist Tara Parker Pope, who quickly generated an expert analysis recounting other famous brain freezes and noting that “countless memory lapses like these happen to the rest of us every day.”
“When all goes well, the medial temporal lobe acts like a library’s card catalog system, pointing to the locations in the brain where different parts of the memory are stored and allowing the memory to be recalled. But in Mr. Perry’s case, it appears that something went wrong, and the search turned up the wrong card or looked in the wrong place or was interrupted,” Pope explained in her immensely popular style.
Now if she can just explain why Perry seems to walk and gesture in unusual ways.
The standards for what citizens expect from those who seek to serve as President of the United States have been slowly decomposing for decades now. We’ve come a long way since flawed candidates, like Gary Hart, would either immediately quit in shame or face automatic expulsion over character issues.
Whether or not you like Perry’s politics, he converted a potentially devastating flub into positive, empathetic exposure. An upcoming $1 million national ad buy, if it’s distinctive, could reinforce his staying power.
