One thing that is going largely unreported, however, is their use of the English language throughout the campaign. It seems to me that the manner in which talking points are being delivered has almost as much clout as anything else on the campaign trail. It's not wonder, then, why Obama turns up the 'Midwest' when stumping in Minnesota, and dials up the twang when he's in good ol' South Carolina. It's natural for people who are familiar with the wide range of American dialects to in a sense code switch to speak more forcefully to their intended audiences. It's the reason why Oprah, for example, can say 'you go, girl!' and still manage to have billions of dollars fueled by white stay-at-home moms who buy O Magazine and read all the books in her book club. I know that I do it; it's the only way to stay ahead of the game sometimes.
I'm barely scratching the surface. An amazing blogger by the name of Anil Dash (he's been blogging since 1999! think about that for a moment. He was using Windows 98 on a Dell with a Pentium 3 processor, or maybe running Mac OS 9 on a PowerMac G4... tough times. I bet he worked tirelessly through the night eating eggo's and hot pockets watching "Can't Hardly Wait" on his not-flat-screen-not-hi-def tv. He wasn't riddled with text messages on his iPhone, he was just getting used to the call waiting and caller ID on his regular-ass phone. But I digress...) writes thoughtfully on this subject, and I encourage you all to read what the Blogfather has to say about culture, language and politics. Much respect for this man. Shouts to Jenn B. for enlightening me.
The second post on his blog is "Yo Mama" jokes that relate to the election. They are hilarious. For as long as I can think of clever ones, I will sign my posts with them.
Yo mama's so ugly even terrorists won't pal around with her.
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