![]() ![]() “Ordinarily, when he would just go hit the hustings, he’d use notecards, little 5-by-8 cards,” Fleischer said. Bush used teleprompters, but usually only for important speeches, said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary. (Two of them, actually - twin glass panes that rise on narrow sticks at eye level, one to his left and the other to his right, projecting an electronic visual of the scrolling text of his prepared remarks.) No matter - the president had another one up and running for his stops in North Carolina and Virginia.Īlmost every time the president delivers a speech or makes remarks, no matter how mundane or brief, he reads from a teleprompter. On Tuesday, after someone took a truck in Virginia containing some of the most symbolic objects of the presidency, including the lectern and seal, it was the teleprompter that the conservative Web site Drudge Report zeroed in on: “SPEECHLESS: OBAMA’S TELEPROMPTER STOLEN!” He frequently addressed audiences off the cuff but almost always delivered the big speeches of his campaign from teleprompters - at the time making him appear more presidential, if voters noticed at all.īut now, Obama’s speechmaking is constant fodder for conservative radio, cable news and Internet outlets. When Obama launched his campaign in 2007, he used teleprompters. And sometimes candidates can be seen looking down at notes. I just look down.”įrom a politician sometimes ridiculed as robotic that qualified as a joke.īut Romney and the other candidates do still roll out the teleprompters for certain occasions, such as when the former Massachusetts governor recently delivered a major speech on foreign affairs at the Citadel. “You didn’t see the teleprompter?” Romney replied. Businessman Herman Cain joked last week that he threw the teleprompter off his campaign bus to “get rid of some dead weight.” And when Mitt Romney wrapped up a town hall meeting in Florida this month, a woman approached him and observed: “You did all of this without a teleprompter. Michele Bachmann says she will never use a teleprompter and often proclaims that if she makes it to the White House, she’ll ban them. But this year, the Republican hopefuls are generally just winging it. Since its invention a halfcentury ago, the teleprompter has been used by presidents and presidential candidates, Republicans and Democrats alike, seeking precision and accuracy in their speeches. It’s a sign that you have handlers behind you telling you what to say.” ![]() It’s a sign that you can’t speak on your own two feet. “It’s a negative because it’s a sign of inauthenticity. “If you use it now, you’re like Obama,” Davis said. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in his 2008 presidential run and, until this summer, Republican candidate and former ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. ![]() ![]() “Obama ruined the teleprompter for the rest of the politicians,” said Fred Davis, a media strategist who advised Sen. If Obama can’t give a two-minute speech without a screen telling him what to say, the critique goes, it’s a sign that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and can’t be trusted to do his job. Picking up on a theme that has been rippling through GOP circles for two years, Republican presidential candidates are trying to use President Obama’s reliance on teleprompters to deflate one of his biggest strengths - his oratorical skill. So why, on the campaign trail, has the teleprompter instead become a symbol of ineptitude, mocked repeatedly by Republican candidates? It’s one of the very symbols of the presidency - the ultimate accessory to the ultimate bully pulpit, seemingly trumpeting to all that the words being uttered actually matter. ![]()
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