I was born and raised in New Jersey, but people sometimes say I have a hint of a Minnesota accent, where my father's family is from.

He definitely has a mid-western speech pattern... Its a pause between words or every 2 or 3 word set.. When he first came through Iowa.. and we got to see him in a room with just a couple of hundred people.. it was early on.. the one thing the old people of Iowa loved about him.. was the familiarity in his speech pattern.. It was that instant connection.. its hard to explain.

I remember back right after he was elected..that halt just to drive some of our fellow DU'ers just nutsy fagen.. It is hard for me to listen to Chris Christie..because his speech pattern is so fast..

My guess is that we are so inundated where we are from of being told to think before you speak..that, that is probably is a part of it..

Not one to shoot from the lip as they say.

Don't get me wrong..not everyone in Iowa or Mn or Ks, Ne SD ND Wi etc etc speaks that way.. but a fair amount do..

and I lived there for 18 years. People there tend to have a generic Midwestern accent, which is more our less what the President sounds like.

Those pauses and hesitations in Obama's speech to not sound to me at all Midwestern, but simply his own quirk. If it were common in Kansas, I doubt I would notice it as something different, which I do. I suspect that an important part of his personal speech patterns has to do with spending some of his formative years in Indonesia and attending Indonesian language schools there.