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Watch: Rick Perry Goes Off-The-Cuff During Unconventional Cornerstone Speech

» 60 comments

In recent weeks, it’s become fairly evident that Rick Perry is a politician who likes to indulge in the occasional rhetorical flourish. While pundits have rated his previous debate performances as sub-par, when the Texas governor speaks in less formal environments, he appears to be on top of his game. (Whatever that game may be.) And he does not disappoint in the video below.

The excitement on Perry’s face as he riffs on the New Hampshire state slogan, the tax code, and what it was like living on a farm is just so bizarre, and yet fun to watch. Also, I really don’t know what that voice is he’s doing at the 2:45 mark, but it’s just too funny. Perry supporters will appreciate his sense of humor, while his detractors… well, I’ll let YouTube commenter “grumpymorningboy” take it from here.

I’m not a psychologist, but I’m the child of someone who’s bipolar — and I know bipolar people well — and this has the *exact* qualities of mania. It’s possible to experience manic episodes from a handful of medical (or chemical) conditions, but as someone who grew up around a LOT of mania, I’d bet money that Governor Perry is expressing it here. Look up ‘mania’ on wikipedia to learn more.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the standard response on this video. Either you think Perry did a great job or he looked foolish up there. Actually, could someone check to make sure that this is the real Rick Perry and not Alec Baldwin in a really convincing Halloween costume?

Watch the video below:

h/t Time

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  • Alemkebedes

    He was DRUNK.

  • Anonymous

    Perry was doing a Jim Varney voice ( Know what I mean ?) .

    Speaking of rhetorical flourishes , how about the Emperor Obama complaining about the “Republican Congress ” as if the Dem Senate did not exist , or Biden lying about crime statistics or Moochy :

    “…when Ms. Obama charges, “Will we be a country where opportunity is limited to just the few at the top? Who are we?” one wonders, why, then, in the past three years of hard times, did she insist on vacationing, in iconic fashion, at Vail, Martha’s Vineyard, and Costa del Sol, the tony haunts of “the few at the top”? In these rough times, surely a smaller staff, less travel, and budgetary economies would have enhanced her populist message of some at the top enjoying perks at the expense of others.

    In short, even if she does not revert to 2008 style and restart her lamentations about life in her country being unfair, I think it a mistake for any president to put the First Lady out, in highly partisan fashion, on the campaign trail to attack her husband’s political rivals. And, I think, the public unease with it will soon prove the point.”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/281634/michelle-obama-and-few-top-victor-davis-hanson

  • Anonymous

    Perry was doing a Jim Varney voice ( Know what I mean ?) .

    Speaking of rhetorical flourishes , how about the Emperor Obama complaining about the “Republican Congress ” as if the Dem Senate did not exist , or Biden lying about crime statistics or Moochy :

    “…when Ms. Obama charges, “Will we be a country where opportunity is limited to just the few at the top? Who are we?” one wonders, why, then, in the past three years of hard times, did she insist on vacationing, in iconic fashion, at Vail, Martha’s Vineyard, and Costa del Sol, the tony haunts of “the few at the top”? In these rough times, surely a smaller staff, less travel, and budgetary economies would have enhanced her populist message of some at the top enjoying perks at the expense of others.

    In short, even if she does not revert to 2008 style and restart her lamentations about life in her country being unfair, I think it a mistake for any president to put the First Lady out, in highly partisan fashion, on the campaign trail to attack her husband’s political rivals. And, I think, the public unease with it will soon prove the point.”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/281634/michelle-obama-and-few-top-victor-davis-hanson

  • Anonymous

    The Republican Presidential Candidate in full flow and all his glory.

    Makes for a good slightly drunken stand up routine…

    Still, he may beat those other high flyers Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain…or maybe not

  • Anonymous

    An actual drunken politician , chosen by The Big Wind from Chicago as his impeachment insurance :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TBNeNHHXEY

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmRXH7RkCZQ

  • Anonymous

    the second 1 isn’t even Biden dumba$$

  • S R Karenova

    Anybody still think Rick Perry is ready to be president?

  • S R Karenova

    Let me know when you reply to the subject in a thread instead of interjecting hateful Obama propaganda. LOL.

  • http://mediamatters.org/ Leedog

    I love how the Republicons try to make the rest of us believe that they weren’t in love with this guy a few months ago!! Lol!! Republicons keep proving they should be marginalized when it comes to politics!!

  • labman57

    Rick Perry is little more than a “Chatty Cathy” doll desperately in need of having its reset button depressed.

  • Mari2JJ

    Perry was DRUNK?  I never noticed.  silly, but drunk, NO!

  • Pattersonstone

    Perry’s behavior and speech difficulties are similar to early symptoms of Alzheimer’s/dementia. Perhaps he deserves sympathy.

  • nbb

    He’ll have my sympathy after a diagnosis and when the Koch Bros. stop trying to market him for the presidency.

  • Anonymous

    Ice cream.

  • http://twitter.com/Icabods Icabod

    So you can’t address the video you change the subject?  Figures.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Skinner/100000598231323 Brian Skinner

    This video is just like finding all the crazy moments from Glenn Beck’s career and puttng them all
    together.   Rick Perry only needed one speech to accomplish this amazing feat.

  • http://politicalgates.blogspot.com Patrick – Politicalgates

    Full, uncut speech by Rick Perry at the Cornerstone dinner here:

    http://politicalgates.blogspot.com/2011/10/rick-perry-channels-his-inner-george-w.html

  • mosesdinoark

    “the governor’s marriage is in trouble, that his wife Anita has/will/may decide
    to divorce him, and that the issue is Rick’s alleged infidelity, with one or
    another member of his administration of undetermined gender.”

    Hmmm..those rumors are seeming more believable all the time…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mary-Bechthold/1380381077 Mary Bechthold

    WTF?

  • mosesdinoark

    i wonder what its like at the Perry home after hes had a few and his schizophrenic(she hears voices) stepford wife downs a couple of gin and tonics…Must be comedy gold.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Skinner/100000598231323 Brian Skinner

    I never did.

  • Anonymous

    Who is Rick Perry? Answers From The Land Of Oz

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFz6JLLv4Ko

  • fyonalon

    So good I watched it twice.

  • CarmanK

    There are no words that can desscribe the abomination that Rick Perry brings to national politics. Take a real good look at this guy. This is the man whom the TPARTY has blessed as among the candidates they consider worthy of being the most powerful man in the world and who would lead the US into a new world of democracy. As Matt Taibbi has pointed out in this week’s Rolling Stone Mag: Rick Perry is the new low in politics: …”you have to go pretty far to stand out as a whore and a sell out when you come from a state that has produced  such luminaries in the history of political corruption  as LBJ,  Karl Rove and George W. Bush”. “But Perry has managed to set a scary new low in the annals of opportunism , turnning TX into a swamp of political incest and backroom dealing on a scale not often seen this side of Congo or Sierra Leone.”  Just to name of few of his battery against TX taxpayers: Perry sold  the right to tax TX highway drivers to Spanish billionaires, let a British firm write a law authorizing the sale of virtually all TX state property to foreign corporations and tried to literally sell the lives of retired TX school teachers to a Swiss ban”k, but was stopped by public scrutiny. the TPARTY HAS WROUGHT this crop of misfit candidates for President because they reflect the distorted, meanspirited, intolerant, bigoted policies which the TPARTY NATIONALISTS want to impose on our democracy and they don’t like what they see.  The long term goals of the MURDOGS, AND KOCHROACHES are coming to fruition and it is sickeninng but it is the mantra of the TPARTY and the new GOP.

  • Anonymous

    I think this is Perry’s Bad Lip Reading video.

  • fyonalon

    I kind of like Rick Perry.  The problem is the GOP candidature as a whole is a farce and one of these people may become president of the US.  The extremism of right wing politics has become destructive of society and liberals are demonized as socialists by pundits supported by a major broadcasting network.       

  • Hetoimasia

    That BLR video seems to make more sense.

  • Tx4Obama

    He is drunk or high or both.

  • Tx4Obama

    Yes, DRUNK or all doped up.  The last 30 seconds of the video is VERY BIZARRE !!!

  • Rufus Danegro

    Hey that’s what Rubber Gloves does best-hateful spamming is his forte!

  • Anonymous

    Thanks!

  • APKay

    I don’t think he was drunk.  My impression is that he was trying to be cute. 

    That’s right, Governor I link arms with religious bigots, have no trouble leasing land that features an uber-offensive rock, still got my foot on the neck of my political opponents even a year after I’ve defeated them Rick Perry was trying to be cute.

    And wasn’t that presentation of the pure maple syrup at the end of the video just the knee-slappingest thing you ever did see?

    Eeeeesh.  Epic, EPIC Fail.

  • http://billschmalfeldt.com/ Parky Bill

    I wonder if Perry prefers his “passion” on the rocks or neat…

    http://www.examiner.com/liberal-in-baltimore/perry-clearly-juiced-for-friday-night-speech-1

  • Anonymous

    One need not be very bright in order to speak in Texas.  Phil Gramm is still a Rising Star there.

  • APKay

    LOL. 

    Well you know, one of the knocks on the GOP’s Young Guns program is that a lot of them are old, so he’d probably fit right in.

  • Anonymous

    Don’t worry. A year from now, the choices will be center right Romney and center left Obama. Neither one will really satisfy the majority of their base, and the country will be neither fascist nor communist.
    We muddle on.

  • Anonymous

    As the saying goes=It is better to let everyone think your stupid, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt

  • Anonymous

    He definitely was tipsy. There’s absolutely no denying that. 

  • Wayne Harropson

    I’m not a drinker, but to anyone that thinks there is anything phony about this man, alcohol did not betray his passion, but enhanced it.  He believes every word of what he is saying and is quite evangelistic about it.  If he dialed it back just one cocktail….maybe he would have created some of the best clips ever for future campaign ads.  I can see now how he made it as far as he has.  His is quip about Cain was from the heart of a very kind man.  I could go to work for this guy. Who knows, maybe I will.  Wayne Harropson

  • StupidPerry

    This man Perry is NOT presidential material especially after this debacle.
    Perhaps he knows he is in the tank…now.

    Wave goodby, Guv Perry.  You just had your last dance.

  • PerryDingy

    The biggest jerk I’ve ever seen.    Down with Guv Perry.

    “We must make” Gov. Perry a no more Guv of Texas!

  • BeHappy

    Perry is “practicing” being a good debater.  Ha.  He will NEVER live up to our intelligent Pres. Obama.

    Speak English, Perry. you dumb one.

  • MicheleBachmann

    Pres Obama and Biden in 2012!

  • Bill

    Some may call this speech goofy and bizarre, but it’s the one and only time I have ever found Rick Perry remotely attractive.

  • Anonymous

    Fact.

  • http://twitter.com/gadfly666 gadfly666

    I can now see Perry’s appeal with the low IQ Conservatives/Republicans/Tea Baggers. 

  • Anonymous

    The maple syrup scene at the end took the cake.  Perry was clearly plastered, he couldn’t even stand straight and was giggling like a schoolgirl. 

  • mittwho?

    Makes me want to vote for him all the more.  He was in a zone, can’t deny that.

  • http://OsamaObamaBIDENbiNLAden.blogspot.com/ ObamaOsamaBIDENbiNLAden

     Maybe, or he swallowed an entire bottle of pain killers or something. He seemed to have an Anna Nicoleness about him.

  • david r

    A lady I worked with here in Austin (imagine the archetypal liberal) lived across the street from him before he went to the Governor’s mansion.  He was Agriculture Commissioner at the time.  She said she would never vote for him, but it was impossible not to like him.  Once I was on a plane coming back from El Paso and sat next to one of his female aides.  She could not stop talking about how great he was.  I would probably like him, too, but I’ll never be a supporter of the toll road deal.

  • Bob

    Remember they all loved Trump, too – posters here actually said he was ‘doing the Lord’s work’ with his Birther crusade.

  • Bob

    I wonder if Kinky Friedman now regrets so enthusiastically hitching his wagon to the Perry train wreck.

  • RepubliCLOWNS

    LOL

  • RepubliCLOWNS

    Trying too hard are we?  

  • RepubliCLOWNS

    LOL @ the Republican hack trying to interject a story about the 1st lady.  Sad and pathetic, but hey, that’s what you are.

  • RepubliCLOWNS

     LOL you posted the wrong link!  MORON!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=810105081 Bill Hicks

    I agree with the person quoted in the story that it looks more like a manic episode than substance-induced.  It is almost certainly one or the other, though.

  • Anonymous

    Hey I won’t vote for him but at least he is entertaining, compared to some bore like Obama

  • Anonymous

    You from Chicago? Because you break big wind.

  • Anonymous

     That makes a lot of sense, don’t run against Obama, whip up hate against his wife!

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