ICYMI: The NH GOP's Underwhelming Cattle Call

by: William Tucker

Mon May 02, 2011 at 14:00:00 PM EDT

Five GOP presidential wannabes were in the state this weekend for back-to-back cattle calls with Granite State Republicans. The results were so underwhelming that Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party declared, “The race needs more responsible adults who can actually do the job.”

Mitt Romney, the ostensible front runner, struggled.

Romney remains an exceptionally unnatural public speaker. To convey passion and excitement, he raises the pitch of his voice and imbues it with urgency. But it never quite clicks. His tone and affect are like that of an adult doing a dramatic reading of a pirate story to a wide-eyed three year old. It doesn’t help that he speaks too quickly and often trips over his lines. At points during his speech, Romney seemed to slip into a frenzy and start madly free associating economic buzzwords.

Romney was especially maladroit when he tried to ad-lib a Jimmy Carter-Barack Obama comparison about how Republicans need to hang the "Obama Misery Index" around Obama's neck.

Romney repeated the "we're going to hang him" locution once more and then, all of a sudden, in mid-sentence, seemed to realize that metaphors about hanging a black man probably wouldn't redound to his political benefit. [VIDEO]

Tim Pawlenty practiced self-flagellation over his previous support for cap-and-trade.

Asked in a public question-and-answer session about his past support for a cap-and-trade-like program limiting carbon emissions, Pawlenty answered: “It was a mistake, it was stupid and I’m sorry.” And then he kept going. “I don’t try to defend it. Everybody’s got a couple of clunkers in their record,” Pawlenty continued, repeating: “I don’t try to defend it. It was dumb.”

Michele Bachmann, never one for understatement, invoked the Holocaust to describe the federal debt.

Bachmann recounted learning about a horrific time in history as a child – the Holocaust – and wondering if her mother did anything to stop it.... Bachmann said the next generation will ask similar questions about what their elders did to prevent them from facing a huge tax burden.

"[W]e are seeing eclipsed in front of our eyes a similar death and a similar taking away. It is this disenfranchisement that I think we have to answer to."

Rick Santorum derided the President as a "messianic figure" and criticized him for saying America is a great country because of programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

"America was founded great," Santorum said ... his voice stopping short of a shout. "It wasn't made great because some politicians gave us stuff."

Herman Cain had the best campaign slogan.

"Be a big potato." [VIDEO]

And after all that, Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, reminded everyone that these cattle calls really don't benefit the candidates.

[T]he gatherings are more valuable to the organizers than the candidates, he said. "It's more for the organizers to point out who they are, what their interests are and to get the candidates to talk about things that are interesting to them...."