You don’t have to take anyones word for it, there’s plenty of news footage of him speaking earlier in his career when he was a democrat, no foghorn leghorn played up accent to be found. He still was hokey and used tired phrases for low-hanging laughs, but it wasn’t until he was appealing to Republicans for elected office that he started using that voice and making it his full time persona. Find cspan footage of his Senate democratic primary debate in 2004, then watch when he’s running for Senate as a Republican a couple years later. No remembering hearing required. He just likes power and, like many of the grifters, he found the way to get it.
I remember hearing that he began leaning heavily into this persona when it won him an election though and it’s not really his baseline.
You don’t have to take anyones word for it, there’s plenty of news footage of him speaking earlier in his career when he was a democrat, no foghorn leghorn played up accent to be found. He still was hokey and used tired phrases for low-hanging laughs, but it wasn’t until he was appealing to Republicans for elected office that he started using that voice and making it his full time persona. Find cspan footage of his Senate democratic primary debate in 2004, then watch when he’s running for Senate as a Republican a couple years later. No remembering hearing required. He just likes power and, like many of the grifters, he found the way to get it.