Josh Mandel Adopts Fake Accent, Gets Blasted By Democratic Party

Ohio Republican Senate nominee Josh Mandel adopted a fake southern accent while speaking at a rally with Mitt Romney defending the coal industry, a move that has angered many of the Tea Party favorite’s critics.

Josh Mandel, currently the Ohio State Treasurer, is challenging Senator Sherrod Brown (Dem) for the seat, and adopted the fake accent during part of his speech at a Beallsville, Ohio rally, a town near Ohio’s border with West Virginia, reports The Huffington Post.

During the speech, Mandel defended the coal industry from what he believes are attacks from both coasts, as well as from President Barack Obama. The Senate hopeful has never spoken in a southern accent before, making his critics wonder what he is trying to do, and calling him “a politician we just can’t trust.”

The Toledo Blade notes that the Josh Mandel campaign fired back at critics, saying that the Democratic focus on the nominee’s newly discovered southern drawl is a “ridiculous” effort to divert attention away from Sherrod Brown’s voting record. In a video the Democratic party has circulated, Mandel can be heard with a distinct twang in his voice when he said, ” ‘preciate everyone being out here.”

The twang can be heard on and off throughout his 90 second speech, in which he also said:

“There are a lot of radical organizations from Hollywood to New York City that have never stepped foot in Appalachian Ohio. They are trying to convince the American people that coal is a liability.”

Democratic Party spokesman Andrew Zucker said in a statement about Mandel’s twang that:

As if blowing off work and hiring unqualified campaign workers and friends at taxpayer expense wasn’t evidence enough of his blatant disregard for the people who elected him treasurer expecting that he’d do his job, Josh Mandel has now stooped to faking his accent as a means of earning votes. It’s sad, it’s pathetic and unfortunately it’s concrete proof that he is just another politician who can’t be trusted.”

The Democratic Party has also assembled a video contrasting how Josh Mandel spoke to the miners in Beallsville versus the way he says the same words during other public functions.

What do you think about Josh Mandel’s use of a fake southern accent while speakign with coal miners in southeastern Ohio?

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