One of the most memorable speeches of the 2012 presidential campaign was when Senator Marco Rubio of Florida introduced Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention.
But, when you watch the video above you’ll see very near the end, at 17:22, he accidentally flipped over a comparison and said that:
“We chose more government instead of more freedom.”
USA Today, who had a copy of his text, and was blogging live, noted:
“10:31 p.m. ET: Rubio flubs a key line in his speech, saying ‘We chose more government instead of more freedom.’ Someone in the crowd says no. Line in the text says, ‘We chose more freedom instead of more government.’ “
I caught it too. But, if you didn’t have the text in front of you, you probably missed that minor mistake. Most of the audience didn’t care at all because the rest of his speech was so compelling. And, on the following morning the headline for the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog said:
“Marco Rubio Delivers Rousing speech at RNC.”
Nobody’s perfect. On April 25, 2012 Brad Phillips blogged about when Mr. Rubio lost the last page of his speech. In an interview with GQ magazine he was asked how old the earth is, and gave a long answer instead of just saying I don’t know. He was criticized by Phil Plait and others, and later corrected himself.
As an audience member of both good and bad speeches, I agree wholeheartedly. We are pulling for the speaker, because we want something out of it. We want the motivation, the inspiration, and the actions to walk away with. I thought this article was a great message. There's another side of it to: As a speaker, we need to ensure we concentrate on providing the best content, targeted toward this particular audience, so they can get the most out of the experience. Thanks for sharing.- Thomas B. Dowd, author of "From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide."
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