Consider this a list of the top 10 verbal misfires under the pitiless glare of the national political stage.
John McCain, 2008: ''The fundamentals of the economy are strong.''
This off-key attempt at reassurance, delivered in mid-September as Lehman Brothers was collapsing, helped seal the fate of a losing campaign. The beneficiary was Barack Obama, who had endured his own embarrassment over a secretly recorded remark to donors that some working-class voters ''cling to their guns or religion'' as reasons to support Republicans.
John Kerry, 2004: ''I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.''
The comment about money to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan helped cement Kerry's reputation as an equivocating politician after President George W. Bush's campaign exploited it in mocking television ads.
Al Gore, 2000: ''I took the initiative in creating the internet.''
Critics seized on this clumsy assertion, made during a CNN interview, to lampoon Gore as a brazen embellisher taking credit for the innovation. The attacks later helped Bush's campaign to influence media post-mortems after a debate in which Gore made minor misstatements.
Bill Clinton, 1996: ''You think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much, too.''
With that acknowledgment at a Houston fund-raiser, Clinton roiled Democrats, Republicans and his own aides. He won re-election against Republican Bob Dole easily anyway.
George Bush, 1992: ''Message: I care.''
Stung by accusations that he was disconnected from the economic struggles of average Americans, Bush fuelled them by giving New Hampshire voters this piece of political stage direction. Clinton's ''It's the economy, stupid'' campaign withstood publication of a 1970 letter in which he acknowledged having avoided fighting in Vietnam without resisting the draft ''to preserve my political viability''.
Michael Dukakis, 1988: ''I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life.''
This emotionless response, to a debate question whose hypothetical premise involving the rape and murder of his wife, fixed Dukakis's image as a technocrat at odds with most Americans on the high-voltage issue of crime and punishment.
Walter Mondale, 1984: ''Mr Reagan will raise taxes and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did.''
Intending to impress with candour, Mondale handed the Republican incumbent, Ronald Reagan, a weapon with this stunner in his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. Reagan won in a landslide.
Ronald Reagan, 1980: ''Approximately 80 per cent of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation.''
Democrats used this so-called killer trees statement to cast Reagan as a know-nothing, extremist retired actor. But Reagan swept to victory.
Gerald Ford, 1976: ''There is no Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.''
The misstatement, intended to signal solidarity with those under the Soviet Union's thumb, allowed his opponent Jimmy Carter to question the incumbent's foreign policy acumen. Carter won a close race despite his own awkward confession to Playboy magazine that he had ''committed adultery in my heart many times''.
George Romney, 1968: ''When I came back from Vietnam I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody can get.''
This remark, about Romney's conversations with US diplomats and military leaders on the Vietnam war, led to the collapse of his challenge to Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination.
That gaffe produced a striking bit of recent political analysis - from Romney's son Mitt. During his failed bid for the 2008 Republican nomination, the younger Romney said his father's experience was ''probably not that applicable to today''. ''Running for president in the YouTube era, you realise you have to be very judicious in what you say,'' Romney said in 2007. ''Any time you're running for the presidency of the United States, you're on.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/open-mouth- ... z27A3IjAa9
Mitt, you are not alone!!
Mitt, you are not alone!!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Mitt, you are not alone!!
Those are some winners, but the list is missing one of my favorites;
George McGovern's 1972 " “I will crawl on my knees to Hanoi” line....
Just what a guy who was already seen as a naive pacifist needed to say....
George McGovern's 1972 " “I will crawl on my knees to Hanoi” line....
Just what a guy who was already seen as a naive pacifist needed to say....
Re: Mitt, you are not alone!!
“He cradled a football under his arm as he spoke,” the pool report, written by The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel, reads. “He began by asking which teams were represented — football, soccer, lacrosse and cross-country. Any others? He asked. ‘Cheerleaders,’ a group of girls shouted.”
“Guess what, the cheerleaders in college are the best athletes in college,” Biden said. “You think, I’m joking, they’re almost all gymnasts, the stuff they do on hard wood, it blows my mind.”
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Mitt, you are not alone!!
1972 was the last time both the presidential and vice-presidential candidates on a ticket lost their home states.Lord Jim wrote:Those are some winners, but the list is missing one of my favorites;
George McGovern's 1972 " “I will crawl on my knees to Hanoi” line....
Just what a guy who was already seen as a naive pacifist needed to say....
Looks like that will be happening again this year.
"Hang on while I log in to the James Webb telescope to search the known universe for who the fuck asked you." -- James Fell
Re: Mitt, you are not alone!!
This summer, a Cuban-American radio presenter in Florida asked Mitt Romney what his favourite types of fruit are. "I am a big fan of mango, papaya, and guava," Mr Romney replied. The hosts could not suppress their laughter. It may not strike you as particularly funny that Mr Romney said he liked papaya, but "papaya" is Cuban slang for vagina
But that was not Mr Romney's only Spanish slip-up. His most notorious came five years ago during an impassioned anti-Castro speech in Miami, Florida. "At the end of speech, Mr Romney had the crowd fired up," recalls Joe Garcia, a Cuban-American Democrat in Miami. "And he ended, 'Patria o Muerte, Venceremos — the nation or death we shall win,' which is the closing line of all of Fidel Castro's speeches.
"It's a great line. Unfortunately for Romney it was the wrong line in this crowd."
El Bloombito"
In August 2011, New Yorker Rachel Figueroa-Levin created a parody Twitter account that mocked New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempts to speak in Spanish.
Here are some of "Miguel Bloombito's" greatest hits:
"Ay Ay Ay todos things are mucho wet"
"Todayo yo soy will annouñce el end de el programo del stopo y frisko. (Feliz Aprilfoolsvidad!)"
"Esta un grande misunderstanding. Yo only spy on los muslimiños por que yo necesito to know el besto carto de falafel."
"El #OWS parko de Zuccotti esta open, pero los following items es prohibito: tentos, pillowados, blanketos, speakeros, cameras, y lawyeros"
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”