Have Teleprompter, will travel

posted at 12:15 pm on September 16, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Barack Obama gets a rare tweak from CNN on his inability to perform off-script.  While appearing at a campaign rally in Pueblo, Colorado, Obama made a joint appearance, not with Joe Biden or Senate candidate Mark Udall, but with a more critical member of his campaign — his Teleprompter:

The Democratic presidential nominee has never tried to hide the fact he delivers speeches off the device, though normally he doesn’t use one at standard campaign rallies and town hall events.

But the Illinois senator used a teleprompter at both his Colorado events Monday — making for a particularly peculiar scene in Pueblo, where the prompter was set up in the middle of what is normally a rodeo ring.

Normally, speakers use Teleprompters for larger events and use notes for smaller stops on the campaign trail.  There’s nothing wrong with using a Teleprompter — it’s a great tool (when it works) and allows the speakers to maintain eye contact with the audience.  It also allows the candidate more freedom to move on stage and frees them from the podium, allowing a more natural delivery.

But for a campaign that laughably dismissed Palin two weeks ago for using a speechwriter, this seems rather revealing.  Palin uses speechwriters, and Obama can’t be separated from his Teleprompter.  Maybe they can avoid the whole problem with a Milli Vanilli/Ashlee Simpson approach and have Obama lip-synch the speeches instead.

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