How lack of presentation skills destroyed Rick Perry’s ambition

If you ever considered presentation skills incidental to one’s success, consider the sad political saga of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. His run for the presidency launched with great fanfare and an immediate perch atop the political polls.

Then the debates began, and everything changed.

Despite occupying the Texas governor’s mansion for the past decade, CNN reported that Perry had debated only once during that tenure. The lack of experience presaged doom, and that’s what ensued.

His substantial physical presence and commanding voice gave him a pair of terrific assets to work with. But it’s hard to develop skill for anything you do not practice.

During debate No. 1 against his republican rivals to earn the party’s nomination, nobody warned Perry that the cameras would sometimes be pointed at him while he was not speaking. Rather than turn and attentively observe and listen to his rivals’ comments, Perry’s eyes wandered quizzically toward the sky, and around the cavernous auditorium. The would-be president looked boyish, distracted, confused, disinterested.

Contrast that with the well-schooled Mitt Romney, an experienced debater who is obviously conscious that he will be captured on camera at any time. Romney watches with respectful interest as his fellow candidates answer questions.

Perry’s inauspicious maiden debate for the presidential sweepstakes was followed by a series of poor debate performances that convinced many republican voters that Perry was not the presidential timber he was portrayed to be. Perry’s answers lacked clarity, focus, brevity and accuracy. What republican voters remembered after the debates was not the key touchstones of Perry’s campaign platform, rather it was his miscues.

The air started coming out of the Perry campaign, as his support plummeted and his name slid down the political polls.

Then came his leprechaun-like speech in New Hampshire that left observers speculating that he might have been drinking before taking the podium, or had swallowed too big a dose of muscle-relaxants. (Both scenarios were denied by his campaign managers.)

To say his delivery was un-presidential would be an understatement. Much is said about understanding your audience, which is truly crucial, but one must also understand his or her objective. If it’s to win a presidential election, one must understand and observe the sobriety and rhetorical caution required for the speaking roles that are part and parcel of such a campaign.

What many consider the final spike in the Perry campaign coffin occurred during the CNBC debate Nov. 9 when he suffered a brain freeze and couldn’t remember the third federal agency he was vowing to eliminate as president. The video says it all.

There’s nothing unusual about the mind going blank during a presentation. But for this to happen to a presidential candidate, a person who repeats the same talking points over and over again at dozens of speeches per week is almost unthinkable. That Perry didn’t have notes on hand to prevent this unlikely situation shows another dimension of his unpreparedness.

His lack of preparedness was also underscored by political pundits (many of them of a republican persuasion) who argued that Perry sounded like a man running for governor of Texas during his first few debates, rather than for president of the United States.

Again, any presenter must understand his or her audience and the objective of the presentation. One must also prepare scrupulously, especially when the stakes are this high.

This was lost on Rick Perry and his people. And now his campaign has lost its mojo, and his grand ambition is probably impossible to reclaim.

 

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