Over the weekend in New Hampshire, Texas Governor Rick Perry gave the speech of his political career -- in the sense that it might well be the speech that comes to define his political career. It was, in a word, weird. Rachel argued that after you watch the clips from it, you can no longer envision Rick Perry as president. He simply can't be both the man hugging that jug of maple syrup and the leader of the free world.
Our guest last night, Lou Dubose of the Washington Spectator, used to cover Governor Perry for the Texas Observer. Lou told us he hasn't seen this kind of thing from Governor Perry before, except for maybe his remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, which Lou calls a "bizarrely manneristic speech." I spent some time looking at that speech today, and while I do think Governor Perry seems animated and entertaining at CPAC, his performance there is nothing compared to what happened in New Hampshire. Those clips are after the jump.
Meanwhile, the Perry-allied super-PAC has some new videos that show how they want voters to see Governor Perry. It's hard to match the "solid conservative" we're sold, below, with that strange-seeming guy in New Hampshire.
The first CPAC/Perry clip is very, very shaky, but short enough to give you a quick sense of it. The second clip is the full half-hour speech as posted by C-SPAN.