Was this as easy as 1,2,… (now what was the next one)?

There’s a well known technique in public speaking of batching topics in groups of three.

The general idea is that it helps with the flow of the presentation and it’s easier for the audience to remember.

Unfortunately for US presidential hopeful Rick Perry, three topics were one too many when he spoke last night at the live presidential nomination debate for the US Republican candidate.

The speakers at the debate were all candidates to lead the Republican Party in next year’s US Presidential election against President Obama.

Mr Perry was in the process of listing the three US government departments he would abolish if he was elected president when he forgot what the third one would be.

His exact words were:

“I will tell you: It’s three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone: Commerce, Education and the….. what’s the third one there? Let’s see….. OK. So Commerce, Education and the…..the third agency of government I would…..I would do away with the Education, the….. Commerce and…..let’s see….. I can’t. The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”

Now, we all make mistakes at one stage or another when speaking in public so is this really something for Mr Perry to worry about?

After all, the debates are only seen as one of the key deciders in whether somebody will win the nomination or not and they were only seen live on primetime TV across America. The press and TV in American are also only talking about it all the time.

Now, any of you studying professional exams will appreciate that two out of three is 66.67% and I’m sure that if you got 67% in your exams you’d see that as a success.

A potential future president of America only being able to remember 2 out of 3 of his proposed policies though probably isn’t so good.

The video of Mr Perry’s performance can be found here and get ready to cringe with embarrassment.