Jan 10, 2008 04:30 AM
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Did New Hampshire – and possibly the U.S. presidential race – turn on Hillary Clinton's quavering voice and moist eyes, the now legendary moment when the Ice Queen melted?
There was ample evidence in the wake of her stunning comeback here in Tuesday's Democratic primary that the show of emotion in a Portsmouth café struck a chord with women.
Perhaps just as important, however, may have been the media commentary, largely driven by men, that Clinton's teary display was somehow contrived, a "calculated" move from a woman seeking political advantage.
It may have sparked a backlash and opened a gender gap in the Democratic race.
"I got sick of it being played over and over as if we could see it was contrived," said Jesse Ormon, a New Hampshire woman who moved from undecided to the Clinton camp Tuesday.
Both the Clinton team and the Barack Obama campaign acknowledged the response from the New York senator, when she was asked how she coped with such a gruelling campaign, humanized a woman who is perceived as cold and plastic.
"Maybe I have liberated us to actually let women be human beings in public," Clinton said yesterday.
"There was just a really wonderful moment there when, you know, people I think got a sense of why I do what I do," she added in an interview on CNN.
It came as part of a change in strategy by Clinton in New Hampshire, where she answered more questions, spoke more personally to voters and performed well in a debate where she jokingly said her "feelings were hurt" when she was told she ranked poorly in likeability.
Obama reversed roles with her, acting as a front-runner, taking no questions from his New Hampshire rallies and giving less time to state media than he had in Iowa.
The Clinton tears were the topic everywhere yesterday, from the grumbling Obama supporters who boarded the plane here for the return to Washington, to the pages of the country's newspapers (New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wondered whether she would cry her way to the White House) and the political blogs.
In the most famous Clinton quote since her husband declared "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," Hillary Clinton teared up when she answered the question from Marianne Pernold, a Portsmouth freelance photographer.
"You know, I have so many opportunities from this country," she said. "I just don't want to see us fall backwards, you know?
"So, you know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it."
Critics point to her immediately regaining her composure and taking a swipe at Obama over his lack of experience, to buttress their claim that it was theatre.
But the Obama campaign did not want to dwell on that yesterday.
"We're not here to discuss the sincerity of Hillary Clinton's tears," said Jesse Jackson Jr., an Illinois congressman and Obama supporter. "Over the last eight years, George W. Bush has made all of us cry."
For all the talk of the "erroneous" pre-vote polling, the numbers predicted for Obama – 37 per cent – were dead on in most surveys.
What was missed was the last-minute surge of women, either undecided or not intending to vote, who backed Clinton in droves, bumping her up about nine points from her standing before the primary. They accounted for an unexpectedly large 57 per cent of the turnout, and she gained 46 per cent of their votes, compared to 34 per cent for Obama.
In exit polls showing voters who ranked empathy as the most important candidate quality, Clinton received 40 per cent of the vote, almost double the 22 per cent she got in Iowa.
In New Hampshire, Obama received 19 per cent of the vote among the group that valued empathy, down from 24 per cent in Iowa.
Some of the opinion polling had wrapped up Sunday, before her Monday morning moment.
No one in the room thought the Clinton comment was contrived.
Dick Morris, a former Bill Clinton campaign manager was one of many commentators who cut Hillary Clinton no slack on the day before the vote. "I believe that there could well come a time when there is such a serious threat to the United States that she breaks down like that," he said. "I don't think she ought to be president."
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh mocked her by wailing on air and others ridiculed anyone who thought she was being sincere.
"If she was that good an actress, she would have delivered a better victory speech," said Dr. Blema Steinberg of McGill University and author of the forthcoming Women in Power: The Personalities and Leadership Styles of Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, and Margaret Thatcher. "It looked absolutely real. It was in response to an unexpected expression of sympathy."
Steinberg said it wouldn't have worked for Obama, had he done the same facing defeat, because it would have made him look young and inexperienced.
Victor David Hanson, a historian at Stanford University, said such an emotional moment can only happen once.
"The `I'm all choked up' is a one-time bromide," he wrote online in the conservative National Review. "It did the trick – and can't be repeated."
From my opinion i think this just showed how much of weak person she is and politically that's not good. I can't imagine how much she will cry if she get's to be president and there happens to be another war; some women are just too weak for the job-who wants a baby for president...
