I always give Clinton the benefit of the doubt on this one because I have the same problem; I spent a weekend in Apalachian country and couldn't talk right for a week...

Michael, be careful, or you might morph into Hillary.

humm, I've always suspected that this proclivity was a sign of a weak, malleable character....

though my wife always says that when I get around my family, I sound differently...Ese Guy! Odele!

Funny, y'all that don't live in the South always sounded a bit peculiar to my ear.

It's actually a little scary how much more relaxed people down there become when you add a little twang.  I lived in central Texas for about eight years after graduation (hence my nom de guerre) and while I didn't make a big show of cramming my Chicago Northsider accent in people's faces, I nonetheless got more smiles and noticeably better service when I swapped in some "y'all"s for "you guys" and softened my vowels a bit*.  Especially among the older generation.

Fitting in and trying to make people feel comfortable are core American traits, and nothing to be ashamed of.  A lot of it happens unconsciously, and you would expect a politician -- whose job, after all, is relating to people and getting them to like you -- to have an even more finely honed sensitivity to such things than the average Joe.

(*After a few years I was even good enough to get compliments from the natives when I was doing imitations: "Man, for a non-Texan you have got the accent *down*.  You sound like you're from Granger!")

One reason that, after a little exposure, those of us who don't live there start talking like those who do is that it feels good. Just like Sela Ward, Ashley Judd, Molly Sims, Reese Witherspoon, and them other GRITS (girls raised in the South) are easy on the eyes, so is a country drawl easy on the tongue.

Now y'all just kick off your shoes and set a spell. We ain't caught up with each other in way too long, and I think it's a sin.

[to the kitchen] Bring us some of that lemonade, wouldja, hon? We got us some company out here, and they look thirsty.

Keep typin' those scripts Crowley 'HRC is a "phony" ', your ship will come in soon BABY!

It's not just Yankees down South. Two weeks in Edinburgh and I start talking like an episode of "Hamish MacBeth." I start saying "wee" and pronouncing "pint" like "paint" and "right" like "rye" and the like.

As to the Southern thing, here's another Northerner who discovered early the degree to which even the faintest Dixie-style rounding of vowels completely transforms Southerners' interactions with you. Go to Chicago and talk like Mike Ditka, and nobody will treat you any better den dey udderwise woulda. But go to Richmond, drop in a gentle "y'all," and it can mean the difference between being treated like a leper and being treated like a close relative. Dealing with county and state bureaucrats south of the Ohio River, a thin Southern accent can make all the difference in the world in terms of getting access to public records.

Oh, for pete's sake.  Even Obama starts dropping his g's when he's trying to be folksy.  Listen to him talk while sitting on a senate panel grilling Petraeus and Crocker, then listen to him on the trail.

Watch John Edwards when he's talking to a crowd here in North Carolina and when he's on national TV.  His southern accent is noticeably reduced when in the national spotlight.  I'm even guilt of turning my drawl on/off as needed.  When I deal with people I know are locals, my NC drawl comes out naturally.  When I deal with co-workers in Maine on the phone it's virtually non-existent.  Sure makes my life easier.

As timteeter said, you can even hear it in Obama.  When he was speaking at NCSU after his North Carolina win I could hear  his speech pattern was different than speeches he gave in IA or NH.

I'm sure Hillary learned this while living in Arkansas.  I'm betting it was a survival skill she had to perfect.

It's the water, I say y'all, it's the water!

Re John Edwards, could he sound like he grew up in Jamaica Plain after a day or two in Boston?

I think many of us have a tendency to sound like those around us in order to fit in. I know I sounded like I grew up in NJ when I was in college even though I was born and grew up in California. Or it could be that the wiring in our brains that lets us learn to speak as children is always working, even as adults, creating a bit of a feedback system altering our speech patterns to fit those we hear others using. Any linguists here?

What HRC says is much more important than whatever accent she's faking, consciously or otherwise.

Yes, what Hillary says is much more important.  Pity for her.  She would be so much more electable and likable if her accent of the moment were all the really mattered.

Obama? How dare you suggest that? He's the saint-in-residence. And if he did that, it would be right. If Hillary does it, she's a phony. It's very logic. Whatever she does, is bad. But if he does the same thing, it's good. Get it?

Accents are fluid things.  I grew up in southeastern Virginia--sort of no-man's-land accentwise with lots of military folks from all over--the product of the coupling of an Alabaman and a New Englander.  My default accent is probably best characterized as subtly Southern, but when I was a kid we used to vacation on the North Shore of Massachusetts Bay, and it would take only a week or two of copping crap from the local kids for my "hillbilly" accent, before I started to sound like I'd been born or raised in Beverly or Salem.  And then, going the other way, after several years of medical training in North Carolina, I'd catch myself and realize that I had at least as much twang as John Edwards.  

So, I'm willing to cut Hillary some slack on this.  After all she did make her home in Arkansas for many years, and she's married to a cracker.  Hell, I'm married to a Jew and now I use all sorts of Yiddishisms I'd never have touched before.  I just think the pols need to be a little careful.  It's not so much that its phony; it's actually quite natural to modify one's speech patterns to those of one's audience.  Rather it's that it can have the APPEARANCE of phoniness.

Bad, but certainly not as egregious as Bush's Texas accent during the 2000 race which got more pronounced the farther AWAY from Texas he was.