Last word on the SRLC

Published Mar 14 2006, 03:30 PM by Adam Reilly

Slate's John Dickerson always does great stuff, but his synopsis of Mitt Romney's speech at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference is even better than usual:

"Romney is so polished on the stump his handlers are going to have to schedule a lot of whimsical, impromptu off–the-record moments of natural expression during the campaign. This might have been the goal when Romney opened his speech by singing the lyrics to "Davy Crockett" and altering the last line to, "Doctorrrr, Doctor Bill Frist, king of the wild frontier." This sucking up to the hometown favorite coupled with Clark Griswold goofiness made me want to dive under the desk out of embarrassment for Romney and mankind. The audience didn't care. They liked him and were still talking about him two days later."

Perfect.

You can find Dickerson's treatments of all the presidential hopefuls who hit Memphis last weekend here. Also, be sure to check out his final analysis of the SRLC proceedings, which includes an intriguing Elvis/GOP analogy.