"'Merican families have made a lot of sacrifice . . . . But everybody just kept goin'. It took a lot of determin-ay-shun."
--Hillary Clinton, on the stump this week in South Carolina
She's really making it too easy on Saturday Night Live. If the brilliant Kate McKinnon doesn't come on tonight with her own Southern accent, dripping with y'alls and you-uns, then the writers missed an easy one.
Yes, campaign season is in full swing, even a full year-and-a-half before the next presidential election. If there were any 'Mericans left who still doubted that, see Hillary Clinton's swing through South Carolina earlier this week, in which she brought out her Southern accent again. It's only a YouTube click away.
Oh, the conservative media types had a field day with that one. From the folks running the Weekly Standard to the Fox News people to the radio shock jocks, the mocking birds were in full chirp. Hey, darlin', you all's runnin' fer pres-dent?
As with most easy criticism, the kind that doesn't take much thinking through, it was over the top, cheap and maybe even a little unfair. As if many of us don't forget how to pronounce our "th"-s when we visit relatives south of Baton Rouge. All da sudden, this and that turn into dis and dat. Put a little Cajun food in front of some of us, and we're calling white perch sac-a-lait and pulled pork cochon-de-lait.
On a drive through Tennessee, some of us hiccup with a twang. Or visiting Texas, start sounding more like Tommy Lee Jones than Tommy Lee Jones.
It's human nature to want to fit in. Try some crabcakes in Maryland? Why not? Some buffalo steaks in Denver? You betcha! Enter a lobster restaurant on a visit to Maine? Where do we pahk da cah?
And politicians want to fit in worse than anybody. Remember when John Kerry went goose hunting in the 2004 presidential campaign and was caught on camera askin' if this here is where I get me a huntin' license? Oh, Lord, spare us. At least Hillary Clinton has lived in the South (somewhere around here) and has experience conversing in the language. Yes, her accent went west of The River and south of the Missouri line pretty quick when she visited South Carolina, but at least, thankfully, gratefully, blessedly, she didn't go all Steel Magnolias and start talking as if she were born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, which is the usual default fake accent for anybody trying to sound Southern. Why that is, we're sure we don't know. Maybe too many late nights spent watching and rewatching Gone With the Wind.
Our considered editorial opinion on Hillary Clinton's brief speech in front of her South Carolina audience this week: She never sounded better. Her accent, that is. Some of us have a soft spot for dropped Gs and two-syllable words that sound like four and ladies who have Southern accents so thick that they might require a skilled translator. That's fo' a fact.
Besides, when it comes to Hillary Clinton, and not just Hillary Clinton, it's best to focus on what she says. Not how she says it. If she ever gets around to a real, in-depth interview with a real journalist asking real questions, some of us would like to know more about emails, Benghazi, contributors to the Clinton Foundation, etc.--and wouldn't mind hearing the answers in a wicked good Boston accent.
Editorial on 05/30/2015