Photo by Marius Slaustas, cringel.com
Do not underestimate the power of a single voice to make or break an election. The power is not in the words themselves; it is in the sonic experience.
Everyone has seen—and heard—mainstream media news reduced to pellets of information called “sound bites.” We rabbity news consumers meekly nibble on these empty-calorie hors d’œuvres because we are starving for the taste of real information. Performance artist David Letterman has famously turned the tables by subjecting past presidents, as well as our current one, to the sound bite test. FDR and Kennedy pass with flying colors; Bush ’43 mumbles and stumbles to failure. Sound bites back.
The current presidential campaign is delivered in sound bites. The ads, catch phrases, pundits and talking heads get more air time than the candidates themselves (except for the occasional TV drive-by, when the news camera swoops in on a candidate’s real-time delivery of a speech, then cuts away to more important matters before he has finished speaking.) Sound bites are the news media equivalent of Chicken McNuggets—looks good; tastes lousy; fills us up but leaves us hungry.
Recently, there was a clarion sound that broke through the mainstream media’s bite-sized, prepackaged news: Sarah Palin’s voice. It carries a lot of information. Important information for fans and foes alike. On first hearing, it reminds us of Frances McDormand’s character in the Coen Brothers movie, “Fargo” (Funny how life imitates art). It speaks to practicality, an unflappableness and a certain homespun quality. A second hearing hints at her beauty pageant past. Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey has made hay with “the voice,” even more so than with Palin’s looks (see earlier postings here). But for the midsection of the country, Palin’s voice is proof she’s “real folks,” like them. She sounds approachable, homey, fun.
A momentary segue: my maternal grandparents came from the Boston area. They spoke with that distinct “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd” sound. To my ear it was a purr—soft, comforting and intimate. My grandparents have long since passed away. But the sound of a Boston accent can still give me audio whiplash. It alters my equilibrium. How can a total stranger’s voice sound so intimate, so compelling? I must know them….
This is the power of regional speech. It goes deep for those who have a personal association with it. When a person speaks as we do, it’s a homecoming. When Sarah Palin stepped up to the podium at the Republican Convention, it was the sound of her voice that won the crowd: its tone, its cadence, its regional peculiarities and familiarities. She didn’t sound like a walking book or a calculating politician. She sounded like a real person.
The beef on Obama — that he sounds like a book — is powerful commentary. It may be through his voice, more than his politics, that people decide to vote for him or not. If you recognize his voice as a member of your family, your tribe, your community, you’ll vote for him. If he sounds strange and unfamiliar, if his voice speaks to experiences you’ve never had in communities you’ve never known, then you won’t vote for him.
The proof is in the majority response to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Both men were educated at elite universities. In Bush’s case, he was born in New Haven, CT (not Crawford, TX). He attended an elite prep school before going on to an elite educational institution—Yale. He comes from a wealthy and privileged family with personal ties to powerful people around the world. Yet the majority of Americans do not consider him elitist. Why? It’s his voice. It’s a little bit Country, a little bit Texas. His voice reassures because it is familiar. (Watch for the soft Texas twang to disappear once he is out of office.)
Bill Clinton did not come from an elite or moneyed background. It was by virtue of his intellect that he went on to two major institutions of higher learning: Georgetown University in Washington, DC, then Oxford University, on a Rhodes Scholarship. Clinton capped his stellar educational journey with a law degree from Yale University. Despite a damningly bookish background and an “elite” education, the majority of voters loved him because he sounded like a “good ol’ boy,” meaning someone like themselves—or their husband, their son, their grandfather. Facts were beside the point. Bill Clinton’s voice overrode any perception that he might be way over-educated to be the President of these United States. In a sense, Clinton created a Bubba avatar that helped him win the high stakes game of presidential politics.
Obama, consciously or unconsciously, has cultivated a neutral voice: unregional, unaccented…until six months ago, when I noticed he was fudging his “-ing”s, as in “I’m gonna talk to you about jobs,” as opposed to, “I’m going to talk to you about jobs.” He has rounded down the crisp edges of his words in an effort to sound less elitist and more folksy. But he can’t keep his light under a barrel. It shines through. His speech is a little detached, a little elevated, lawyerly and, yes, intelligent. It’s a devastating combination for an American presidential candidate. But hey, politically speaking, “neutral” is way better than “sounding Black,” even though that particular speech stereotype bears a striking resemblance to Southern speech patterns practiced widely by both whites and blacks.
Let’s hope the majority of Americans get past their audio prejudices. Let’s hope the people vote for the only man whose actions have demonstrated his fitness to be President of the United States: Barack Obama.
bordertalksblog.com 
This is extremely thoughtful and persuasive. Ive been mulling a lot of this over lately myself.
Let me, though, just raise one question that I was talking about with someone last night:
Do you think some regional accents are so culturally stigmatized in other regions that anything someone says in the stigmatized accent will tend to be interpreted as unintelligent?
I was thinking about this in light of Governor Palin, and let me say this politely: I see her as less articulate and less informed than any candidate foir national office in my lifetime. (And that goes back to the Truman/Barkley!) But I wonder: What if she was articulate and informed? And what if her political views were closer to mine?
Might that accent and voice that I confess to finding so irritating perhaps seem less irritating? Would I hear through the speech and connect with the substance because I, as a supporter, had a motivation to do so? Or might I, who was drawn to her politics, still dscoiunt some of the substance because in my region her Frances McDormand-talk is seen as evidence of lesser intelligence?
I guess I am interested in how accents and voices affect our evaluation of a person’s intelligence.
By the way, Frances McDormand is a great example to cite. Because her accent initially sets you up to think she is naive, and then her actions and words slowly show how incredibly perceptive and even brilliant she is.
PS Frances McDormand in Fargo is the only time in my life I have left a theater and said: That is definitely the recipient of the acting academy award. She got it.
Yes, voice is crucial in popular politics but I don’t think it is only about regional accents and the use of folksy or pseudo-folksy expressions or intonations. Tone and tempo are also key. Presidents are usually baritones (as well as being tall) and Obama’s vocal range is soothing not only in what he is saying but how he is saying it. He speaks at a relatively slow WPM (words per minute) and his moderate tempo is matched by the use of predictable tones (McCain is “erratic” in his tempo as well as in his tone–he goes up and speaks fast when he appears angry or excited). Though his voice is deeper than FDR’s, Obama is using his voice in similar fashion–he is invoking confidence in the pacing of his vocal delivery. Though he does drop off a “g” and sometimes says ‘ta” instead of “to” his speech suggests a respite from anxiety in they way that FDR’s patrician vowel sounds seemed to reassure the American people. Even when Obama quickens his tempo toward the end of his speeches, he does not vary his vocal tone too much (certainly not as much as McCain). Also Obama uses anaphora to great effect (the repetition of clauses to begin sentences) which is also a technique that lends musicality to a speech, and satisfies a listener’s expectations. Obama is providing assured tonalities at a time of economic uncertainty.
I’ll swallow my annoyance at Candidate Obama’s dropped g’s, preacherly cadences, folksy mannerisms that sound inauthentic, and flag pins worn to satisfy a right-wing patriotic checklist. Whatever temporary alterations are necessary to get us to President Obama are okay by me.
Yeah, I’ve been turning off and tuning out presidential pronouncements for eight years because the person uttering them–no matter the import of the words–sounds like a fucking idiot. On the other hand, it wasn’t Clinton’s twang that prompted me to vote instead for Jerry Brown in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 1996. It was his center-right politics.
A clarification to my post (#3):
The types of ‘temporary alterations’ I’m referring to are relatively superficial and tonal–not substantive, not about policy, for example.
–D.I.
It’s worth noting that Sarah Palin’s “Fargo-esque” delivery is not entirely her own. The RNC hired a highly-regarded voice coach to work with her as she prepared her acceptance speech to the GOP convention in August. You’ll find a brief, but tantalizing, reference to this in the NY Times Sunday Magazine article (previewed in today’s NYT, Oct 22) on the many iterations of McCain’s campaign narrative.
Robin and several commentators raise an interesting question as to whether her accent would buttress her message, if it were a message with which they personally agreed.
May I suggest one small way to test this “medium or the message” question? Palin’s accent is very similar to a classic Minnesota accent (which McDormand lampooned in “Fargo”). Some commentators say there’s a reason for this similarity: a significant influx of Minnesota residents who helped populate portions of Alaska decades ago. And that accent was maintained by subsequent generations because that region has been somewhat less exposed to other American regional accents (or so the argument goes).
So…. Why not try this minor thought experiment? Go to YouTube, find a Palin clip that’s somewhat content-neutral (perhaps when she talks about her family or her hometown rather than politics), then find a parallel clip of Walter Mondale or Hubert Humphrey speaking on a similarly neutral topic.
Do you feel yourself responding differently to those speakers? Of course, this isn’t a controlled experiment; there are significant variables such as gender and historical associations. But it’s one way to begin examining our responses to a “regional” speaker, and to his/her message.
Of course, Gene McCarthy may also come to mind as you think about other orators with Minnesota accents. But for some reason, McCarthy’s Minnesota accent is considerably muted, much subtler than Humphrey’s or Mondale’s. I have no idea why that would be (BTW, I speak as a Minnesota native who used to teach voice and speech).
If any of you think this modest exercise in regional speech comparison has merit, I’m very interested in your responses as you test your reactions to the other speakers’ messages.
Thanks,
Beth
RE: “Do you think some regional accents are so culturally stigmatized in other regions that anything someone says in the stigmatized accent will tend to be interpreted as unintelligent?” —Steve Gorelick comment
If Sarah Palen were “informed” and “articulate,” I believe her regional accent wouldn’t matter at all. Think about Molly Ivens, with her Texas drawl. Or Ann Richards. Think about Jimmy Breslin with his “New Yawk” accent. Think of Barney Franks. He has a lisp and a kind of dweeby voice. But we know he’s smart, don’t we? Politics loves characters—people different than we are. It’s refeshing, entertaining, human. What sets Sarah Palen outside these parameters is that, if she is intelligent, she’s not curious and is therefore quite satisfied with the status quo, therefore lazy. If she’s just not intelligent, I don’t want her in the White House either. And of course there are a lot of different kinds of intelligence. If she had ethical intelligence, I’d look again. There are a lot of right-wingers who are hugely intelligent and but their ethics and principles are in the toilet.