HILLARY - 'Conducted most cynical and condescending campaign in modern political history'

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ChicSunTimes

New Yorkers say we're the ones who talk funny

December 4, 2001

BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

NEW YORK--Associated Press reporter Beth Harpaz spent nearly two years covering Hillary Clinton's grab for the United States Senate, and her entertainingly frank book The Girls in the Van provides overwhelming anecdotal evidence that Clinton conducted the most cynical and condescending campaign in modern political history.

You can feel Harpaz's pain as she and her fellow beat reporters endure month after month of 16-hour days in which Clinton repeats the same tired jokes or tells the same hackneyed stories--each tailor-made for whatever voting bloc she's trying to woo on a given day.

Lower-middle-class workers hear Hillary's story about her father not owning a credit card; then again, who did back in 1955? Blacks are told about young Hillary's church group making a pilgrimage to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak. Jewish groups listen to Hillary's awkward attempts to bond with them by butchering Yiddish phrases. And Latinos are courted with a story about Hillary's kindly mother making a Christening dress for a "little Mexican girl from a poor family."

Harpaz makes note of Taina Hernandez of New York's TV1 channel "shaking her head in disgust. "I hate [the dress-making] story," says Hernandez. "It's so patronizing."

The Girls in the Van is one of the most enjoyable campaign books I've ever read. One empathizes with Harpaz as she strives to maintain the balance between covering Clinton's every move and tending to the needs of her own family.

That said, there are a couple of passages in Harpaz's book in which she displays a Hillary-esque superiority complex. Like a lot of Coast-dwelling snobs, Harpaz lightly mocks the way Hillary talks.

In other words, the Midwestern thing.

The scene: a school library. Hillary is reading Maurice Sendak's Chicken Soup With Rice to a first-grade class. Harpaz writes:

"But I couldn't help wincing as she read 'Merry once, merry twice, merry chicken soup with rice,' pronouncing 'merry' the way somebody from Brooklyn pronounces 'Mary.' In New York, 'merry,' 'marry' and 'Mary' all have a distinctly different vowel sound--'merry' has an 'eh' sound, as in bed, 'marry' has an 'ah' sound, as in 'back,' and 'Mary' has a soft 'ay-er' sound as in 'air.' Not so in the Midwest, where Hillary's from, and where all three words sound alike."

Harpaz half-kiddingly advises a Clinton operative: "You guys ought to coach her on stuff like that."

This kind of thing happens all the time. Many Easterners, in particular New Yorkers, seem to think that we're the the ones who talk funny, which is amusing when you consider that many of THEM have accents that are about as subtle and graceful as a face-painting Jets fan who has downed eight beers before kickoff.

Other recent examples:

*In a New York Times review of "Shallow Hal," A. O. Scott writes about Jason Alexander's efforts to distance himself from his "Seinfeld" persona of George Costanza.

"To assure us that he is not just doing more George--or to perhaps out-George George himself--Mr. Alexander has taken on a grating Midwestern accent, a hideous wardrobe and a hairpiece that seems to be made of chocolate-covered AstroTurf."

Funny, I hadn't even noticed that Alexander's character had an accent, let alone a "grating Midwestern" one.

*In a New York Observer story published the week after the 9/11/01 attacks, the reporter took note of "two relief workers, brothers from southern Ohio with thick Midwestern accents and thickset features."

*A wire story about Jack Nicklaus' son Gary provided this evidence of their likenesses: "The ocean blue eyes and twangy, Midwestern accent provide a striking physical similarity."

Twangy. Thick. Grating. Who knew we were offending so many delicate ears every time we opened our mouths?

Of course, the very notion of a single "Midwestern accent" is no more accurate than saying a cabbie from the Bronx sounds like a literature professor reared on the Upper West Side. Even within the boundaries of Chicago, there are different speech patterns. If you grew up in Bridgeport, you don't sound like somebody who grew up in Skokie.

I find it highly amusing that NOO YAWKAHS of all people would be finding fault with our relatively soothing, soft way of speech. I write this passage just minutes after sitting in a coffee shop--I mean, a CAWFEE SHAAAP--next to three women who prattled on about their Christmas plans and their bagels and their mutual friends in voices that sounded like Joan Rivers with a head cold as filtered through a very powerful bullhorn.

Give me that grating-thick-twangy Midwestern accent any time.

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

Answers

When I went away to college from Iowa to Connecticut, my speech would occasionally provoke laughter. For example, when giving the proper pronounciation of bureau (beer-oh).

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

People very often tell me, "You sure do talk funny." To which I reply, "No, actually you listen funny." With a chuckle, of course. And then I gently remind them why the language is called English. . .

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

I'm one of those that picks up accents wherever I go. Can't help it. After living in NC for a year, I came back here and got ribbed all the time for my accent.

shoulda heard me after I was in Chicago for two weeks! LOL

oddly enough, I do not have an Hispanic accent after living here for more years than I like.

K pasta?

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001


All y'alls talkin' about accents? Huh? Who, me? :-)

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

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