Who would have thought that misty eyed Hillary Clinton is on the right track to winning her US presidential bid? While 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. Failed to meet Mrs. Clinton’s spontaneous openness by a show of tears and using hushed voice.
Women supporters backed up Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire to save her White House bid, a lot of of them seduced by a show of damp-eyed emotion seen as humanizing rather than fragile.
Clinton’s dramatic New Hampshire riposte came a day after a routine inquiry on the campaign trail brought tears — an expressive reply that has shattered past presidential campaigns.
The late Ed Muskie was broadly reported to have wept while shielding his wife from political attacks on the New Hampshire campaign path in 1972, an episode seen as the moment when his presidential campaign folded under excessive strain.
“This time, getting teary seemed to help, not doom a candidacy. An overturned Muskie moment,” Chicago Tribune said in an article.
“Her narrow win was largely women’s work. She carried their votes decisively,” the Tribune stated.
Exit polls proposed that Clinton got back her target electorates in New Hampshire after seeing them leave her for Barack Obama in Iowa.
Women bowed out to vote in superior numbers than men in New Hampshire, according to an MSNBC Democratic exit poll. Fox News established that women voting Democrat favored Clinton to Obama 47 to 34 percent.
Surprised aides savoring Clinton’s triumph recognized the “humanizing” effect of the coffee shop incident as well as her performance in Sunday’s candidate debate.
“They watched that debate. I think they saw Hillary Clinton and she contrasted the records. And I think the humanizing moment yesterday, I think that’s what did it,” Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told MSNBC.
Clinton herself seemed to recognize her emotion and genuineness 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 crucial moment, 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 an undertone.
Then in one of a small number of insights the campaign has given into Clinton’s private character, she said: “This is very personal for me … it is not just political … I see what’s happening … we have to reverse it.”
In her momentous bid to become the first woman in the White House, Clinton has without fail projected robustness and poise.
Clinton — embarrassed on the open stage by disclosures of her husband’s infidelities and the collapse of health care collaboration she undertook as first lady — has never permitted the public a quick look 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 conclusion New Hampshire voters seem to have establish in it proof of Clinton’s “likeability,” an ethereal campaign asset that can defeat 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 Tuesday.
Marianne Pernold Young, 64, whose questioned regarding Clinton’s emotional demonstration, later told Fox News that Clinton’s reaction was far from a sign of weakness.
“I think it showed humanity. I think it was a very tender moment,” she said.
I rest my case.
