HOOVER, Ala. — Speaking at the Alabama Democratic Conference convention over the weekend, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton delivered a familiar stump speech with a somewhat less familiar accent.
The Illinois native, who was schooled in Massachusetts and Connecticut before marrying an Arkansan and spending much of her adult life in Washington and New York, suddenly sounded like a Southerner while addressing the assembled crowd in Hoover.
“There is a pattern of Republicans getting us into economic messes and Democratic presidents having to come in and clean them up,” Clinton said with a folksy drawl that seemed to come and go throughout her remarks. “You know, when my husband became president, thanks to a lot of you in this room, I remember after that election in ’92 him saying to me, ‘It’s so much worse than they told us.’ …And then we got another Republican president, and boy, did he leave a mess… President Obama doesn’t get the credit he deserves for saving the American economy from falling into a great depression.”
(Article resumes after the video)
(Video above: Hillary Clinton speaks at campaign stop in Alabama)
The Washington Examiner noted this is not the first time Clinton has tried to channel her inner Southerner while addressing voters in the Yellowhammer State. While running for President in 2007, Clinton recited a hymn by Rev. James Cleveland with a thick accent while speaking at a church in Selma, saying, “I don’t feel no ways tired,” as the crowd cheered her on.
“Hillary Clinton has started faking a Southern drawl to speak to Southerners, just as she did during her last presidential run eight years ago,” wrote the Examiner’s Curt Mills, who also provided an explanation for why Clinton is making a special effort to win over Southerners.
“With Bernie Sanders narrowing her lead or overtaking her in early caucus and primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton is hoping for a ‘Southern firewall,'” Mills explained. “She wants to win in South Carolina and then in the many Southern states holding primaries on ‘Super Tuesday,’ where Sanders is polling much worse. That could mean a lot more of these type of videos, capturing her speaking in a voice she did not learn during her childhood in Illinois and schooling in New England.”
(Video below: Hillary Clinton speaks in a thick Southern drawl while addressing a crowd in Selma, Alabama)
.@HillaryClinton fakes southern accent during campaign stop in Alabama (Video) http://t.co/eec2bvH8yO
— Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) October 19, 2015
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