NO TELEPROMPTER for Ted Cruz! He is a a Blue Dem Destroyer. #RedNationRising
— Red Nation Rising (@NObamaChat) March 23, 2015#TedCruz Speaks from The Mind and Heart! Not a Teleprompter! Something not seen In 6 Years!
— KittysPlace n Saloon (@kittyssaloon) March 23, 2015Democrats have lowered the bar for presidents they're quite shocked to see a candidate not using a TelePrompTer #TedCruzCampaignSlogans
— MarieTweets☕️ (@mkues65) March 23, 2015Imagine...a leader who cares so deeply about America that he can speak about her from the heart...without a Teleprompter. @SenatorTedCruz
— Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) March 23, 2015It seems appropriate that Crowley would praise Cruz for this because her old boss Richard Nixon is the only president since Eisenhower not to use a Teleprompter. Crowley may think it's a good thing that Cruz is Nixonesque, but I'm not sure the rest of us would agree that that's good company to be in.
And yes, Saint Reagan was among the users:
That's a photo from a speech Reagan gave to Britain's Parliament in 1982. The Financial Times responded with an article titled "Reagan's Dazzling Teleprompter" (scroll down here):
At no point did he consult any notes, or give any sign of reading a speech, and at the end MPs were astonished by the apparent powers of retention of the septuagenarian president. Perhaps, they were saying, acting was a good training for politics after all.Why do Ted Cruz fans hate Ronald Reagan?
The truth, as MPs discovered later, was that Mr Reagan was reading from a particularly cunning form of teleprompter. Projectors, hidden in the rostrum projected his script on to two lecterns, otherwise assumed to be bullet-proof screens on either side of him.
From the audience, the screens looked transparent. It therefore looked as if the President was merely glancing left to right to embrace different parts of the audience. From his side, however, the words were written clear and large as on any ordinary teleprompter.
The only possible flaw in an otherwise immaculate performance, was that Mr Reagan failed to look down and pretend to read notes when quoting from Winston Churchill.
Afterwards, MPs were intrigued and clearly envious. Indeed, immediately after he sat down, there was almost as much interest in the method of delivery as in the contents of his speech.
