Posted on 06/10/2007 7:00:01 PM PDT by blam
US in thrall to southern drawl
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 2:21am BST 11/06/2007
To British ears, an American southern accent carries connotations of cowboys and country singers, but in the US it signals something quite different: political success.
Ronald Reagan was not southern but possessed home-baked charm
Four of the last five US presidents have been southerners, and the only exception, Ronald Reagan, possessed the demonstrably southern virtues of straight talking and home-baked charm.
But in the early stages of the competition to succeed George W Bush neither the Republican nor Democrat parties boast a bona fide southerner among their candidates.
However, that is likely to change this week as Fred Thompson, sometime lawyer, lobbyist, star of Law and Order and senator, is expected to announce his bid for the Republican nomination.
Thompson has a lot going for him. Like Reagan, he is an actor. Unlike his rivals he is a reliable social conservative on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and gun control.
But the former senator from Tennessee is also the proud owner of an impressive southern brogue.
"No accent telegraphs more information faster than a southern one," wrote Elizabeth Wilner in The Politco newspaper. "It exudes approachability, an absence of pretence and a penchant for plain talk."
Thompson's mellifluous, authoritative tones are music to the ears of Republicans. "He sounds like a man in command," said Whit Ayres, a Republican psephologist. "He communicates very effectively to ordinary people and has definitely got the potential to win."
Things were all very different in the 1960s when southerners were unelectable, and more uptight, flat-voiced north-easterners and Washingtonians dominated.
The attraction of a southern candidate reflects the growing importance of the region. Its population is expanding thanks partly to migration from the north and mid-west by people in search of warmer weather and less crime.
“In other words, whether it IS an absence of pretense and a penchant for plain talk isn’t important. We just want to be soothed by comforting sounds.
Fred spent most of his professional life as an inside-the-beltway lobbyist (the used car salesmen of politics), has no demonstrated executive skills, carried out the single most damaging attack on the First Amendment in a generation, has a voting record virtually indistinguishable from that of the detested John McCain, but FRedheads are in love because he has a “southron drawl.”
Nice try. I’m guessing Ron Paul, or maybe Duncan Hunter are your candidate. Am I right? Fred Thompson, despite his faults, is head & shoulders above those gentlemen, as well as the rest of the GOP pack. Take another look...
No, JCEccles is a very noisy and rather aloof troll for Mitt Romney, believe it or not.
One would think that living in a cracked glass house, he wouldn’t throw so many stones. Yet, he persists.
Can you please elaborate on Rudy’s questionable ethics? I don’t remember anyone mentioning them.
Sounds like a lot of window dressing. Please someone please let us all know what our dear Fred Thompson has accomplished. What results has he produced? Show me that he won’t cave in to the Democrats as he did to John Glenn. I would like to support him but would like some evidence that he has Executive ability.
His records shows that he caves easily to Democrats and that he was a John McCain clone much as Senator Lindsay Graham is today.
He is NOT a “McCain” clone. He is far more conservative...besides being sane.
During the eight years that Thompson and McCain served together, they cast votes on 102 CQ-defined key votes and agreed on 83 of them - or 81.4 percent of the time. They disagreed 18.6% of the time, that’s pretty high considering that both are Republicans and both are considered relatively conservative. Just as an example from one year, among the instances in which Thompson and McCain differed were votes in 2002 to effectively extend a repeal of the estate tax beyond 2010, to authorize oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and to postpone tougher automobile fuel efficiency standards. Thompson voted “aye” and McCain voted “no” in all three cases.
And he sure got some good results for someone who “caved”.
I don’t know what you think he was supposed to do with witnesses who fled the country or pled the fifth amendment.
“In 1997, Thompson’s committee was designated by the Senate leadership to conduct an investigation into alleged improper or illegal activities growing out of the 1996 federal campaigns.
The committee exposed a campaign system rife with abuse and open to foreign influence, and produced a 9,600 page report that led to several indictments and a number of on-going criminal investigations. The New York Times declared that Thompson “forced Attorney General Janet Reno and a snoozing FBI to quit ignoring any and all indications of corruption in the 1996 campaign.”
Yusina Beach (now go home).
How old is he? He looks in his early to late 70’s in that picture.
Same people who wanted Colin Powell for President. Yelled and screamed that Ivy was the best candidate to beat Murtha and would not take anybody else. Oh and don’t get me started on katherine Harris...
Well, his mother’s side, the Walkers, were Texan, so W’s had family connections with the South. He’s not just a carpetbagger.
Alabama State Flag
I wouldn't know why, since cowboys are a WESTERN thing, not a Southern. You'll find (real) cowboys in Montana and Colorado, not Georgia or Tennessee.
McCain's problem was never his voting record (except for perhaps the last few years.)
It's the fact that he's a media whore and a nutcase.
I think a lot of Southerners settled the west. For example, Sam Houston was the governor of Tennessee and also the first president of Texas. The city of Houston, Texas was named for him.
To this day, Tennessee is know as 'the volunteer state' for the number of people who went from there to Texas and fought for it's independence from Mexico.
He’s 104 years old.
On the other hand...
Marty Queen (Opinion): Lose the Southern accent? I reckon we ort not to
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