Voice Lessons

It's been about a week since the presidential election, just about enough time to get the celebrating and crying over and done. Even so, I'm sure a whole lot of folks on both sides are still wondering how and why things turned out the way they did. Well, I'm going to tell you. It was the voices—the actual speaking voices of the people who were running for office. Sure, wedge issues, voting records, car bombs and beheadings had something to do with the outcome. But you could strip all that away, and the voices alone were enough to get Bush reelected.

Bush might have lost all the debates, but he sounded good doing it. When Bush talks, he sounds like a real enough Texan, a cowboy-of-the-people. He's plainspoken, he uses little words, and he mispronounces "nuclear." Bill Clinton did all the same things, with an Arkansas accent. If you ask me, both of these guys know good and well how to pronounce "nuclear." They went with "nucular" for effect. It worked. We're now three-quarters of the way through a 16-year run of folksy-sounding Southern guys in the White House.

I know what you're thinking: Why didn't Al Gore win four years ago? He's Southern.Sure, Gore's Southern, but he's not the least bit folksy. Best I can tell, Gore's got two public voices: his regular speech-making voice, which sounds like Forrest Gump trying to talk down to people, and his excited speech-making voice, which sounds like a mean drunk about to get up off the bar stool and take a swing at somebody.

John Kerry guaranteed last week's defeat years ago, when he dropped his native Boston accent in favor of a one-note Botoxed baritone. Now he sounds like a man yelling down to somebody trapped in a cave. "Hold on! I'll throw a rope!"

Of course, Kerry and his handlers tried to folksify their ticket—and pick up some Southern states—by adding North Carolinian John Edwards. Unfortunately, the Kerryites in charge of picking a running mate must've been a bunch of tin-eared Yankees, people who think that there's only one Southern accent, and it's the fake one all the actors used in Gone With the Wind.

There's no way John Edwards' speaking voice was going to win over the majority of native Southerners. Why? Let me put it this way: if Nathan Lane had been raised in Robbins, N.C., he'd sound just like Edwards. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

In the vice-presidential debates, Dick Cheney, who has a generic-American-newscaster accent, turned Edwards' voice to his advantage. Time and again, Cheney waved off his rebuttal opportunities and made Edwards talk more.

I think the Bush people have got this voice thing figured out, and they're going to use it to make them look more moderate. Pretty soon, we'll be seeing a shakeup in the president's cabinet. Who's going to be the first to go? John Ashcroft, because he talks like a TV evangelist. I predict that the next attorney general won't sound at all like a TV preacher, and he'll order the drapes pulled off the fine aluminum breast of the Spirit of Justice statue. In one slick move, the Bush administration will win points with the people who are scared of the evangelicals, and they'll score with the art crowd to boot.

Speaking of people who sound like televangelists, our very own Sen. Bill Frist has a touch of Ernest Angley in his speaking voice. If Frist wants to be president, he needs to get rid of that before the 2008 primaries, at least when he's talking in the blue states. Frist's likely rival in the primary, Rudy Giuliani, has wiped out his native Brooklyn accent and has a generic American voice that'll sell in the red and blue states.

On the Democrat side, Sen. Clinton from New York doesn't stand a chance. She has a harpy voice. Very few men—and most likely no red-state men—want to hear that voice. It's the take-out-the-trash voice, the pick-up-your-socks voice, the harsh and strident voice of the dorm mother from hell. I suggest that the Democrats forget about Hillary and run Ellen DeGeneres for president. DeGeneres has a very pleasant voice. She sounded perfectly adorable in Finding Nemo. On vocal talent alone, I believe DeGeneres could take the Iowa caucuses, then sprint through the convention uncontested.

I don't think the Democrats should give up on Howard Dean. Sure, he took himself out of the race with one crazy-off-my-meds face and a high-pitched manic scream. But just from looking at him, and knowing what I know about mood stabilizers, I think he could make a comeback with the help of a little lithium. Heck, he could write his own prescription.

Finally, let me gently suggest: between now and 2008, you king-making politicians should screen out potential candidates with preacher voices, doofus voices, monotone voices, mean-drunk voices, nag voices and war-whoop voices. Give us some candidates who are easy on the ears.