Twang Enters the Discussion In Va. Race

The stakes are high: The votes of southwest Virginia are considered a political prize in any state election. Yet the evidence for the accusation that Kaine is mocking Kilgore or anyone else is somewhat murky.

"You're not going to have a smoking gun," Kilgore campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said. "If you're going to call someone out on their accent, you have to do it in a subtle way. You think they're actually going to run an ad saying 'Jerry Kilgore talks funny'?"

The evidence, Murtaugh said, lies in the fact that Kaine has run ads challenging Kilgore to use his own voice in his political advertisements and that the Kaine campaign has posted a clip of Kilgore speaking on the Web site http://jerrytheduck.com/ .

"Why would they be so anxious to have people hear his voice?" Murtaugh asked. "There is no other explanation than that they are trying to draw attention to his accent. . . . There is no other way to look at it."

Kaine spokeswoman Delacey Skinner dismissed the accusations as politically motivated nonsense.

"All we were saying is that if Jerry Kilgore is going to run ads attacking Tim Kaine, he ought to be standing by them and using his own voice," she said. "That was the point of those ads -- nothing more.

"The reason we put the audio clip on the Web site is for what he's saying, not how he's saying it," Skinner added.

Murtaugh responded:

"They can deny it all they want; they know what they're doing. You can tell by their reaction when we smoked them out on this. They were fairly apoplectic."

Dennis R. Preston, a linguist who has studied people's perception of accents, said having an accent like Kilgore's has advantages and disadvantages.

What that accent says to many northerners, he said, is "I may not be a correct speaker, but when I speak, people know I'm a real, authentic, down-to-earth person."

On the other hand, he said, some people hear an accent and think the speaker may be ignorant.

"When I teach my classes in Michigan, I use a pretend Michigan accent just so my students think I'm capable of tying my shoes at least," said Preston, a professor at Michigan State University who grew up near Louisville, with an accent not too different from Kilgore's. "I do this not because I'm ashamed. It's just more convenient. It keeps people from not paying attention to me for a while."

Although it's too early to tell how the accents dispute will play politically, around tables in Gate City's pool hall, there was much skepticism about the subject in general.

Danny Head, 53, a carpenter, scoffed at the nation's infatuation with "The Beverly Hillbillies" and the attempt in recent years to concoct a "reality TV" version of that show.

"I would have liked to have been one of the actors in that show and gotten all that money," he said. "But I've lived here my whole life, and I can tell you there's no people like that around here."

In fact, said Allen Goodsey, 67, the only people who resemble anything out of "The Beverly Hillbillies" are the politicians who, he said, are like the character known as Mr. Drysdale -- the banker who would stoop to anything to make sure the Clampetts kept their accounts at his bank.

"Mr. Drysdale would do anything for money," Goodsey said, "and they'll do anything for your vote."