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How a tear helped Hillary
09/01/2008 14:45 - (SA)
Manchester, New Hampshire - Women voters flocked back to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire to rescue her White House bid, many of them seduced by a display of damp-eyed emotion seen as humanising rather than weak.
Clinton's stunning New Hampshire comeback came a day after a mundane question on the campaign trail brought tears - an emotional response that has destroyed past presidential campaigns.
The late Ed Muskie was widely reported to have wept while defending his wife from political attacks on the New Hampshire campaign trail in 1972, an incident seen as the moment when his presidential campaign folded under pressure.
"This time, getting teary seemed to help, not doom a candidacy. A reverse Muskie moment," the Chicago Tribune said in an analysis.
Support from women
"Her narrow win was largely women's work. She carried their votes decisively," the Tribune said.
Exit polls suggest that Clinton won back her key target electorate in New Hampshire after seeing them desert her for Barack Obama in Iowa.
Women turned out to vote in greater numbers than men in New Hampshire, according to an MSNBC Democratic exit poll. Fox News found that women voting Democrat preferred Clinton to Obama 47% to 34%.
Stunned aides savouring Clinton's victory credited the "humanising" effect of the coffee shop incident as well as her performance in Saturday's candidate debate.
"They watched that debate. I think they saw Hillary Clinton and she contrasted the records. And I think the humanising moment yesterday, I think that's what did it," Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told MSNBC.
'We all spoke from our hearts'
Clinton herself seemed to credit emotion and authenticity in her victory speech, saying that in New Hampshire "I found my own voice," and "we all spoke from our hearts".
The day before the primary, in a New Hampshire coffee shop, Clinton grew misty-eyed and soft-voiced when asked how she managed to keep going every day.
"It's not easy, and I could not do it if I just didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do," Clinton said.
"I have had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want us to fall backwards," Clinton said, as her voice dissolved into a whisper.
Then in one of the few insights the campaign has given into Clinton's inner character, she said: "This is very personal for me ... it is not just political ... I see what's happening ... we have to reverse it."
Toughness and composure
In her historic bid to become the first woman in the White House, Clinton has consistently projected toughness and composure.
Her main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, by contrast, boast political narratives rich with personal disclosure.
Obama has detailed his painful search for an absent father in a memoir, while John Edwards openly speaks of his wife's cancer and his son's untimely death.
Clinton - humiliated on the public stage by disclosures of her husband's infidelities and the flop of health care initiatives she undertook as first lady - has never allowed the public a glimpse of her inner life.
"Over the past 17 years, Clinton has constructed a public face that is controlled and largely inscrutable," social commentator Robin Givhan wrote in The Washington Post.
"Spontaneity and emotional frankness are not character traits one associates with her."
"She is no longer speaking from that protective shell. This is more of her essential self," Clinton biographer Carl Bernstein said of the coffee shop incident, speaking on CNN.
In the end New Hampshire voters seem to have found in it proof of Clinton's "likeability," an intangible campaign asset that can trump policy prowess.
"I just like what she believes in. I think she's a great person," gushed Silvia Umpierrez, 50, at Clinton's victory rally late on Tuesday.
Marianne Pernold Young, 64, whose question unleashed Clinton's tear ducts, subsequently told Fox News that Clinton's response was far from a sign of weakness.
"I think it showed humanity. I think it was a very tender moment," she said.
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