LITTWIN: Tearing-up of Hillary may be just what her campaign needs

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 8, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Photo by Elise Amendola / Associated Press

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, center, speaks to women at a cafe in Portsmouth, N.H., after become emotional while answering a question.

Hillary Clinton finally caught a break in this fast-moving campaign. All it took was a little nervous breakdown.

As you must have seen by now, Clinton had a near-Muskie moment on the campaign trail Monday, her voice breaking, her eyes misting.

If you missed it - a little confession here: your ace correspondent didn't catch up with Clinton until her next event - the video shows her sitting with a group of undecided voters. When one asked how she does it day after day, Clinton began to answer and then choked up. She began this way: "It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards."

And then, with her voice catching: "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."

Since Clinton is a candidate who requires a special effort to show her soft side on the campaign trail, this was not exactly expected. On the other hand, it wasn't exactly expected that her campaign, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, would be in danger of imploding. The latest polls show her trailing Barack Obama by an astounding 10 points. What former front-runner - See: Mitt "Don't Touch the Hair" Romney, who had his own teary moment recently - wouldn't be tempted to weep?

As soon as Clinton choked up - for the record, you couldn't call it crying - everyone immediately went for the Muskie comparison. For those of you who are not presidential scholars, Ed Muskie ran for president in 1972. During the New Hampshire primary of that season, he either wept (which is how the story was written) or his face was wet from the snowstorm (which may be closer to the truth). In any case, real men weren't supposed to cry, or allow snowflakes to gather on their cheeks, in 1972. And Muskie would eventually go on to lose that year to George McGovern, who was crushed by Richard Nixon, who gave us the Watergate hearings, where one of the lawyers was Fred Thompson (and another was, yes, Hillary Clinton).

So you can see the danger here.

Of course, in Colorado, we remember Pat Schroeder - or was it Nora Dunn of Saturday Night Live? - crying when she said she wasn't going to run for president in 1988.

But there's another angle worth exploring. Clinton desperately needed something to change. It wasn't enough to simply insist that she was somehow the change candidate. What she needed was a change of luck or, at minimum, a change of topic. Even Bill Clinton was having trouble changing the topic. He told a New Hampshire crowd that he couldn't make Hillary "younger, taller or male."

Where the Clintons have succeeded over the years is when they've been attacked. And go to your favorite right-wing Web site and guess what you'll see.

I'll try Michelle Malkin. She never disappoints:

"All together now: Boo-freaking-hoo.

"Anyone who believes Hillary spontaneously teared up and got emotional on the campaign trial today has been in a coma the last three decades.

"Forget a box of Kleenex. I need an airsickness bag."

That's what Clinton needed. Ask yourself this: Would she rather have a conversation about whether she faked an embrace with her inner Hillary or about the nation embracing her opponent, Barack Obama?

The problem for any candidate who lost in Iowa is that there has been almost no time to change the conversation. Here's Clinton's latest attempt: She's now claiming that Obama, the hope candidate, is offering false hope. That Obama, the change candidate, isn't really about change. That his eloquent words don't matter, in what she's calling her rhetoric vs. reality tour. (That all we have to fear is words themselves?) That if you look at Obama more closely, he's not everything he seems to be. You see - and I'll cite Clinton here - Obama actually voted for the Patriot Act and, it turns out, his New Hampshire co-chair is a lobbyist.

"That," she said, "is not change."

This, in fact, is how you know she wasn't faking Monday. She choked up and then, catching herself, went right back to taking on Obama. "Some of us are ready," she said, not showing her soft side, "and some of us are not. Some of us know what we'll do on Day One and some of us don't."

It echoed what she's saying in her new stump speech: "This election is about the difference between talk and action, between rhetoric and reality. If we're going to be talking about change, then let's talk about change. Let's talk about who's produced change, and let's talk about who's more likely to bring about change."

If you believe the polls, the new approach may not be working any better than the old one. I went for anecdotal evidence at a community center gym here in Dover, where the crowd was energetic, but not exactly overwhelming. Even at a Clinton rally, it was easy to find many in the crowd who remain unconvinced. I met a number of undecided voters, several of whom were headed for an Obama rally later in the afternoon. If you live in New Hampshire and you haven't made up your mind, it's never over until it's actually over.

I was talking to Paul and Sheila Pike, who say they're undecided. Paul says, "My problem is her lack of experience. She keeps saying she's been changing things for 35 years. What's she changed? What? I know, she was the first lady. But take Bill Clinton out of the equation, and what has she done?"

They were both headed for the Obama rally.

Clinton gave her stump speech and then took questions for more than an hour. The crowd started to drift off. The question-and-answer period went on. And on.

If you go to an Obama rally here, it's all energy. The crowds are huge, and with the weather turning warmer, people are expecting a large turnout today when the vote finally comes - with Clinton facing the possibility of another devastating loss.

Here's what most forecasters are predicting for election night at Obama headquarters: If it looks like anyone's crying there, it will probably be melting snow.

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com

• January 8, 2008

  7:25 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

  "So you can see the danger here."
  The danger is the "change" Hilary wants will move the US further down the path towards socialism than any President since FDR. Once on that path it's very difficult to return to rational government. She was crying because she thinks she might be losing her long-desired coronation.

• January 8, 2008

  8:30 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Spencer writes:

  That's a little overblown M in Hartsel. If you are taking that position then you have to say Bush has moved us closer to a dictatorship than anyone in history.

• January 8, 2008

  9:17 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Michael writes:

  Spencer - Wrong again, but you seem to excel at that. FDR and Lincoln held far more power during their respective war presidencies. President Bush does not come close to interning 10s of 1000s of Arabs or Muslims as FDR did with the Japanese. Lincoln suspended all habeous corpus. Again, President Bush has not even come close. Wilson had seditionists locked up during WWI. There have been many Presidents throughout the history of the USA that have far exceeded their exercise of presidential power beyond what President Bush has. But then your partisanship and total lack of history always seem to get in the way of facts and intelligent debate, don't they Spencer?

• January 8, 2008

  10:53 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  BJG writes:

  Let's get back to the subject of this article. Hillary may not come off as the "perfect" woman candidate, she's strong, opinionated, smart, and took on the "boys" from washington. That makes her an uppity bitch to lots of men and women. This country still seems to have a victorian view of women. They should be quiet, demure, stand two paces behind the "husband" and listen to his advice in matters of politics. We know that we have a race problem in this country. We also have a gender problem. Who would be the perfect woman candidate? Probably the answer in this country would be Margaret Tatcher, in Great Britan, Bhutto in Pakistan, and Nobody in the US.

• January 8, 2008

  12:10 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  kathyM writes:

  The problem with Hillary is not that she's a woman--it's that she has NO credibility. The universal healthcare debacle, Whitewater (anyone remember Whitewater?), the me-too-ing during her Senate term--not to mention her dufus husband--all contribute to my low opinion of her. I'd take Geraldine Ferraro, Jane Byrne, even Nancy Pelosi, over Hillary in a nanosecond.

• January 8, 2008

  12:42 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Truth writes:

  Either she is faking her tears, or she is too weak to handle a presidential campaign--and therefore unfit to handle the job of President of the United States.

• January 8, 2008

  12:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Don_Lopez writes:

  The real question is whether Senator Clinton can climb back into the Democrat primary race without alienating the one group of voters she can’t win the White House without: Blacks.

  Blacks don’t have to vote Republican to sink Mrs. Clinton, they simply have to not vote for her.

  And in her desperation to get back in the race she is coming closer and closer to stepping over the political correctness line that shields Senator Obama.

  Senator Clinton recently remarked that Obama is no Martin Luther King but I don’t think that’s who he’s aspiring to be; I think he wants to be another Jackie Robinson.

• January 8, 2008

  3:33 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BJG writes:

  Obama is so afraid of saying or doing anything wrong that he says nothing of any consequence. He's for "change" so what does that mean? This is a guy with no substance. What's he gonna change without Congress on his side? Lest we forget, whoever wins will only be the head of the executive branch, there are two other branches of govt that may work against the executive branch.
  If Obama gets the nod for the Dems he better hope Romney gets the nod for the Repubs, then it will be an even fight...two men without a plan.

• January 8, 2008

  5:21 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BJG writes:

  Truth:
  You want her to cry and then when she almost grants your wish you say she's too weak to handle the job. Can't have it both ways.
  Kathy:
  When are you Repubs going to quit harping on about Whitewater and Bill's indescretion? No foul in Whitewater, even the Special Prosecutor couldn't find wrongdoing. And the Clinton's marriage problem is not anyones concern except theirs. Clinton is known as one of the best Senators to work with on a bipartisan basis. She knows her stuff and is willing to compromise. She is also known as one of the hardest working Senators holding office, the opinion of both Repubs and Dems.

• January 8, 2008

  6:40 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  kathyM writes:

  BJG,

  So it's OK for you to harp on about any Republican's past and present shortcomings, but it's lese-majeste when it comes to Hillary? And since when does criticizing Hillary automatically make me a Republican?

  Watch out, your fallacies are showing.

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