Vance Touts His “Hillbilly” Upbringing In RNC Speech

The Associated Press reports:

JD Vance introduced himself to a national audience Wednesday after being chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate, sharing the story of his hardscrabble upbringing and making the case that his party best understands the challenges facing struggling Americans.

Speaking to a packed arena at the Republican National Convention, the Ohio senator cast himself as fighter for a forgotten working class, making a direct appeal to the Rust Belt voters who helped drive Trump’s surprise 2016 victory and voicing their anger and frustration.

“To the people of Middletown, Ohio, and all the forgotten communities in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and every corner of our nation, I promise you this,” he said. “I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.”

The Washington Post reports:

Vance offered an up-from-the-bootstraps story that the Trump-Vance ticket hopes will resonate with working-class and rural America.

Vance spoke of being raised in Middletown, Ohio, midway between Cincinnati and Dayton — “a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts” — but also a town “cast aside” by the ruling class in Washington.

There, while his own mother struggled with addiction, Vance said he was raised by “Mamaw” — “the name we hillbillies gave to our grandmothers” — who he described as “an old woman who could barely walk but she was tough as nails.” The account was familiar to readers of Vance’s 2016 best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”