For a couple of months, I’ve been following the Virginia media’s unwillingness to address the voice of likely Republican candidate for governor, attorney general Jerry Kilgore. It’s a minor thing, and one can hardly expect a whole article to be written about it, but when the Washington Post did a whole article about each candidate’s speaking style, it was bizarre that Kilgore’s high-pitched, effeminate, whiny voice wasn’t mentioned. 
The media has started to acknowledge it, referring to “the ‘Ned Flanders meets Mr. Rogers’ whine that passes for Kilgore’s voice,” and his being “a little French.”
I’ve speculated that Kilgore can’t have his voice on the news or in his ads, and that he’d stick with print media. On the flip side, of Kaine’s campaign knows what they’re doing, their TV ads will prominently feature Kilgore’s soft features and his voice. But I just couldn’t seem to remember what Kilgore had done when he was running for AG four years ago. A commenter on Daily Kos, jswift, explains:
When Kilgore ran for AG he never spoke in any of his campaign advertisements. The voice-overs were always some woman. That should tell you a lot about what the Repubs thought about this matter.
And, when I finally heard him speak I thought, “oh, that’s why.”
If anybody can send me a sound clip of Kilgore’s voice, I’d be appreciative. I spent a couple of hours looking a few weeks ago, and turned up nothing. Lots of Kaine. Lots of Warner. No Kilgore. Kaine has a brief clip on his website, but it’s unrepresentative (and in the midst of a confusing video) — it’s got to be longer than a second.
If you like Mr. Kilgore’s accent, you should hear his brother Terry, or Carl Smith of the Carl Smith Center at Scott Stadium, or Senior U.S. District Court Judge Glen Williams, or many of the other lawyers and public officials and businessmen I’ve met here in Southwest Virginia (or maybe even myself). Your commentary on this topic suggests a whiff of anti-Appalachian bias – I read your words and wonder if you are implying that nobody who talks like that (i.e., nobody from around here) ought to be considered fit for high office. A person’s manner of speech seems a singularly illiberal basis for deciding against him.
As for recordings of Mr. Kilgore on the internet, I suspect you could ferret out a snippet or two of conversation between Mac McDonald and Jerry Kilgore in the archived broadcasts of this year’s U.Va. football games, but it might take some doing to find.
Your commentary on this topic suggests a whiff of anti-Appalachian bias – I read your words and wonder if you are implying that nobody who talks like that (i.e., nobody from around here) ought to be considered fit for high office.
It’s funny — John Behan just came to the very opposite conclusion :)
A persons manner of speech seems a singularly illiberal basis for deciding against him.
I agree entirely — I decided against Jerry Kilgore for reasons of policy. But I find it entirely within the realm of reasonable comment to speculate on the likely impact that Kilgore’s voice will have on him. While I think it’s a foolish reason to choose not to vote for somebody, people vote for foolish reasons all the time. I like it when they vote for my man, for reasons foolish or otherwise. :)
I made the same speculation about Warner in 2001, incidentally — he has an odd speech impediment (since largely suppressed) that threw people a bit. It was not a speech impediment that anybody would think likely to be indicative of anything (stutterers, like me [likewise suppressed], can be thought to be stupid, for example), so that was less interesting to me.
If you go to this website and scroll down to “Kaine & Kilgore debate” they have a video with clips of both candidates. Kilgore doesn’t sound that bad to me… He doesn’t sound heterosexual, but it could be worse. If I wanted to exploit this, I would follow an especially effeminate Kilgore clip with an especially deep Kaine clip, to emphasize the contrast.
If I wanted to exploit this, I would follow an especially effeminate Kilgore clip with an especially deep Kaine clip, to emphasize the contrast.
You’re quite right.
Thanks very much for the link, Cari — I appreciate it.
Always the objective one, I agree with both you and Steve.
I think that you find Kilgore’s accent comment-worthy, for the way it sounds might be perceived as anti-appalachian. Sharing Mr. Kilgore’s thick accent, as I do, I might be overly sensitive on this issue, however. I endured a good deal of ribbing regarding my accent when I was a law student at UVA.
I also think that it is very fair to speculate on what impact Kilgore’s accent might have on voter’s perceptions of him. I think it will be a sub-issue in this campaign.
rj
Oh, I’m plenty used to strong southern — even Appalachian — accents. :) You are right, though, that those who are simply unfamiliar with the accent on the whole might be inclined to conflate its two elements (the Appalachian twang and the soft-spoken-ness, for lack of a better term) into one “gosh that’s a funny accent,” as opposed to appreciating that the two are separate.
Somebody who speaks Cockney rhyming slang and also lisps sounds doubly strange to somebody who is familiar with neither — but she still lisps. :)
Oh, I almost forgot — it can’t be often that folks from Southwest Virginia often have their accents referred to as “a little French.” :)
Let’s be clear about this: the Virginia accent has nothing whatever to do with the fact that Kilgore sounds effeminate. It’s the pitch of his voice, and the rising and falling intonations that make him sound like an interior decorator on a bad sitcom. The accent is irrelevant.
PS – And if Kilgore were an out-of-the-closet homosexual man, I wouldn’t bother commenting on his manner of speech — it would be irrelevant. It’s the fact that he’s on record as opposing civil rights for homosexuals that makes it galling to hear him sound so gay.