DNC Counts Down Top 10 GOP Gaffes in Circus-Style Video
It's that time of year again when broadcasts, podcasts and webcasts inundate the airwaves with the Top 10 lists of 2011. ABC has counted down everything from the top political scandals and campaign moments to the most popular tablet computers and legal cases.
Now the Democratic National Committee has joined the year-in-reflection bandwagon, releasing a video countdown today of the top 10 GOP moments that could make the Democrats' road to re-election a tad bit easier.
The video, released in an email to supporters on Friday, strings together some of the most notable gaffes of the Republican presidential contest in 2011. The Democrat's countdown is complete with carnival music and a circus-style ring of GOP elephants.
"In 2011 the Republican presidential wannabes had a lot to say… but they didn't always make very much sense," the video's narrator says at the beginning of the clip."
From Rick Perry's "Oops" moment to Mitt Romney's $10,000 bet to Herman Cain's Pokemon reference, the video splices together the candidate's on-camera, off-message moments with clips of news commentators' and comedy hosts' reaction to the now-infamous mistakes.
Perry's brain freeze at the November CNN debate, which the DNC video's narrator refers to as "one of the most epic memory losses of all time", comes in at No.9 on their list. No. 1 is Romney's comment at the Iowa State Fair in August that "corporations are people too."
"While these moments are definitely funny, the truth is, they reveal a little something about the GOP candidates for president," Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said in the email to supporters. "Unless we do our jobs, one of these people could actually become president."
Woodhouse then asks Democrats to donate in order to "keep these guys on the blooper reel - and out of the White House."
But Republicans were not the only party that had some cringe-worthy moments this year. From Anthony Weiner's PG13-rated Twitter photos to former Rep. David Wu's tiger-suit inspired resignation, Democrats had their share of scandals.
There was the high-profile criminal investigation of the now-bankrupt Solyndra solar company, which was awarded nearly half a billion dollars in government-backed loans, and which tarnished the Obama Administration's federal loan program.
Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder also came under scrutiny for the Fast and Furious program, which allowed firearms to be sold to known gun traffickers in an attempt to catch Mexican cartel kingpins. When those guns wound up at murder scenes, Congressional Republicans accused top-level administration officials of turning a blind eye to the deadly program.