The NYT accuses Scott Walker of changing his accent!

The article, "For 2016 Run, Scott Walker Washes �Wiscahnsin� Out of His Mouth," by Patrick Healy, includes a short video, which supposedly proves the point:

Out on the presidential campaign trail, Gov. Scott Walker has left �Wiscahnsin� back home in Wisconsin. He now wants to strengthen the economy, not the �ecahnahmy.� And while he once had the �ahnor� of meeting fellow Republicans, he told one group here this week that he simply enjoyed �talkin� with y�all.�

The classic Upper Midwest accent � nasal and full of flat a�s � is one of several Walker trademarks to have fallen away this month after an intense period of strategizing and coaching designed to help Mr. Walker capitalize on his popularity in early polls and show that he is not some provincial politician out of his depth.

Is he changing his accent? I'm skeptical. I've lived in Wisconsin for 30 years, and what strikes me is that people outside of Wisconsin, when they hear about Wisconsin, get cranked up and start imitating an accent they believe is a Wisconsin accent. They especially love to say the word "Wisconsin" in their idea of a Wisconsin accent. I don't have a Wisconsin accent myself � I'm from Delaware. The main thing I notice about Wisconsin people saying the word "Wisconsin" is that they make the syllable break after the "Wi." The imitators never seem to get that right. It's wi-SCON-sin. That's the important part. Not the part where you get all weird about the "o."

I had to laugh when I read the end of the article. The NYT quotes a woman named Jennifer Horn, the chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, who wasn't really opining that Walker had changed his accent, only that she didn't hear whatever accent the questioner had asked her about � perhaps by doing that outsider's version of the Wisconsin accent that I've heard so many times over the years:

And at the dinner, as well as in his Concord speech, his Wisconsin honk was noticeably absent.

�I didn�t hear it,� Ms. Horn said. �Good for him, good for him.�

They asked a Horn about a honk.

Anyway, is Walker trying to modify his accent in order to appeal to America at large? It appropriate and competent of him to be working with speech coaches, but should they be taking the edge off his accent and is that, in fact, happening?