Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She attended school in Massachusetts and Connecticut. She then served as a US Senator from New York. Considering she earned her education in New England and served on the East Coast, Hillary's southern accent during a recent campaign stop in South Carolina was heard by some very confused ears.
Mrs. Clinton seems to have a knack for borrowing the regional dialect of wherever her tour bus parks. Her pit stop South Carolina is just the latest example. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart couldn't help mocking her clearly fabricated southern tone.
"I'll do the Lindsey Graham impressions around here thank you very much."
Stewart also took the opportunity to contrast Clinton with a candidate who has a much bleaker chance of earning the Democratic nomination, yet a seemingly more authentic campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT). Although Sanders has championed progressive ideals such as reining in Big Banks and expanding Social Security, he has often characterized him as a bit too eccentric for the White House.
“The problem here isn’t that Bernie Sanders is a crazy-pants cuckoo bird,” Stewart said. “It’s that we’ve all become so accustomed to stage-managed, focus-group-driven candidates that authenticity comes across as lunacy.”
Clinton has already been criticized for her staged campaigning after reports claimed that her staff had bussed in supporters to a campaign stop in Iowa. As for her insistence that she and husband Bill were "dead broke" after leaving the White House in 2001, one look at their speaking fees proves she and the American people have a much different interpretation of the word "broke."
Staged events and fake accents are doing Hillary no favors. If she is the best candidate the Democrats have to offer, their party may be in for a rude awakening next year.
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