Temperatures across the northeast may be unseasonably warm, but a few Republican presidential candidates seem to be experiencing a bit of brain freeze. Both Rick Perry and Herman Cain publically dropped the ball in the last week; resulting in another big drop, this time in the form of poll numbers.
It all started last Wednesday, November 9, when Texas Governor Rick Perry blanked on the name of the third government agency he would give the ax to once in office.
“Three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: commerce, education and the um, uh… what’s the third one there? Let’s see…” Perry stumbled and turned to Ron Paul, who helpfully offered to send the Environmental Protection Agency to death row. When pressed by the moderator, Perry stumbled again, “I can’t, the third one, I can’t... Oops.”
Perry took a big PR hit from his “oops” moment. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll shows that 42 percent of Republicans view Perry in a favorable light while 38 percent now view him unfavorably. Only four percent of perspective Republican voters say they would vote for Perry in the primary.
Herman Cain faired equally poorly in the past week. Cain stumbled his way into a foreign policy gaffe just as he distanced himself from the litany of sexual harassment allegations against him. When a journalist asked him if he agreed with President Obama’s response to the rebel uprising in Libya, Cain responded: “Okay… Libya…” He then paused for a full ten seconds, tried to get his bearings and ended up failing miserably. He offered lukewarm response well two minutes after the question was asked and came out of the interview looking very rusty on foreign policy. A recent CNN/ORC poll puts Cain’s support down to 14 percent, well below that of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
Josh Gordesky wrote a piece for Ragan.com offering some helpful advice to prevent these Rick Perry/Herman Cain brain freeze moments. His three preventative measures to combat temporary amnesia are to take good notes, practice at least three times and to take some time to visualize yourself speaking in front of an audience before you go live. These are wise words of advice for anyone speaking in public, when presentation and memory is crucial.
Only time will tell if these two candidates can make up for the ground they lost this week. Rick Perry and Herman Cain need to take some time to really learn their positions, policy proposals and current events to have any chance becoming a frontrunner again.
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