Stigall: Ted Cruz And Other Candidates Need To Be Able To Laugh At Themselves In Order To Win People Over
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Talk Radio 1210 WPHT morning host Chris Stigall expounded upon his theory that many presidential candidates do not become relatable until after they are no longer running, and he feels that something needs to be done about this earlier in the election.
"Campaigns will tell you they have this person, they really don't have this person. I have long contended campaigns need to hire somebody who does nothing but groom candidates to relate and speak like people do."
He feels that candidates show off this lack of relatability whenever they go on to late night talk shows, and Stigall cites what he feels is the perfect example in Sen. Ted Cruz's recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. He feels that the only bright spot in the interviews was how Cruz responded to a question by Meyers on global warming.
"They were banking on Ted Cruz being a cartoon there on the Seth Meyers show. They believed all of the stuff that was clipped and sound bitten about Ted Cruz, that he is a buffoon who they thought was more of a Sarah Palin type, but no, he wasn't. He was deadly sharp and accurate and Seth Meyers had nothing to say."
While he feels that Cruz and others have done well with the policy and politics side of the interviews, it is really the personal side that they have to improve on, that is other than Gov. Chris Christie.
"When Ted Cruz is asked to tell a personal anecdote, I believe he fails. He fails because there is no self-effacing humor, and this is something you must do to ingratiate yourself to a crowd that thinks you're a kook. You must be aware of yourself…Christie does this very well. What does Christie do? 'Hey, I'll pull a donut out of my jacket because you think I'm fat.' Get it? There's a difference."
In the end, Stigall feels that the relatability of candidates should not matter but it does, and he thinks that Cruz only has to do one thing in order to be more likely to win people over.
"If you could have coupled the ability of Ted Cruz to lay out Seth Meyers with fact, devastating fact, even garner applause, if you can couple that with a little self-effacing humor… just something to say 'I get it. You think I'm a dope.' Don't try to legitimize your dopiness."
