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Arizona governor's cringeworthy debate moment holds lessons for anyone who speaks in public, area experts say
VIDEO: See the video clip
It was a moment almost too awful to watch, but too compelling to stop watching.
In a debate with political opponents earlier this week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer launched into her opening statement, stumbled over her words and then fell silent for 10 long seconds. She laughed uncomfortably, looked down at some notes, took an audible breath and at last found her words. "We have did what was right for Arizona," she blurted, then added a Thanks to news websites, bloggers, social media and especially You Tube, the debate clip How bad was it, really? "It was a terribly awkward moment in which it would appear that she went blank," said Timothy O'Donnell, an associate professor of communication and director of debate at the University of Mary Washington. And because Brewer has gained national recognition for her state's controversial attempts to stem illegal immigration, the existence of the viral video clip is especially damaging. "It may feed the ongoing narrative of her incompetence," O'Donnell said. "She certainly did herself no favors." But since the debate, O'Donnell noted, Brewer has given interviews with friendly television and radio outlets. "It seems that some of the recuperative post-event strategies seem to be working," he said. After all, communication anxiety--a fear of public speaking--is shared by much of the population, O'Donnell said, mentioning Jerry Seinfeld's joke that at a funeral most people would rather be the guy in the coffin than have to stand up and give the eulogy. Still the video clip won't be easy for a politician to shake. And it could have been avoided, said Linda C. Muller, a vice president of the Rappahannock Regional Toastmasters Club. "The two things you can nail as a candidate are your opening and closing statements. You control the content," she said. Such statements can and should be well-practiced beforehand.
It wasn't so bad.
who can't explain why they don't want to secure our borders
but want to continue to spend millions employing the lower level
idiots at the INS. Why bother wasting our tax money on a
department that has nothing to do?
You have to admit, it was pretty weird.
The reason she did not use a teleprompter is because it was a DEBATE. This isn't even comparable to Obama's use of a teleprompter. I'd say the biggest gaff she had during the debate was not recanting what she said about beheadings in the desert of Arizona, and when asked why she refused to recant her statement, she ignored the question and ran off because she knew she was lying. Now that's worthy of a news article.
to me. The lady has balls and so few politicians of any sex do.
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