His “Ahm just a simple country fella asking questions” bit is so tired. Dude went to Vanderbilt, then was magna cum laude at U Virginia Law, THEN got another law degree with honors at Oxford. In the 2000s he ran for Senate as a Democrat, then switched to Republican.
Yeah, if you want to be a career republican politician in the south the standard strategy appears to be pandering to the yokels in the base in the most frustratingly transparent manner possible.