Bring On The Tears

I just don 't want to see us fall backwards. This is very personal for me. This is not just political. It's just public. I see what's happening... we have to reverse it. Some people think ... against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it each one of us because we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are not.

I was in Concord for the morning and missed the video moment of the day, one that the cablers are playing over and over and the sure-fire lead of the day on New Hampshire television.

Journalists on the trail say it was the most vulnerable they had ever seen Clinton and the media is playing its sympathetic.

Clinton and many -- though not all -- of the candidates work extremely hard at campaigning, and the strenuous exertions of the trail have turned into a proxy for experience. (Why does John Edwards get away with his relative inexperience? Because he's run before.)

Not only is the physical stress getting to Clinton, but because she has in the past few days, taken control of the strategic direction of her campaign, she is a manager and a candidate.

She (and Bill) wrote most of her revised stump speech, an adviser said.

Comments

For being considered such intellectual and political pros, that new stump speech old Bill and Hillary wrote is a surefire, reactionary stinker.

This all reeks of desperation, but worst of all, Hillary's behavior since Iowa shows that she always believed she was straight-up entitled to it.

Posted by Joe Justice | January 7, 2008 4:19 PM

And then there's this from Ben Smith, I am sure she meant that one must not forget the practical when considered King's legacy, but it comes off as a bash on MLK

Posted by JC | January 7, 2008 4:29 PM

Also this from TPM.

"I like Joe [Trippi], but he should probably spend more time worrying about his own campaign," he told us. "Our resources are considerable and our organization is strong throughout the nation."
--Howard Wolfson, Team Clinton

"Like?" I doubt this is true, but does suggest that Wolfson has been ordered to turn on the nice. You can see the cogs in the machine turning, pretty fascinating.

Posted by JC | January 7, 2008 4:43 PM

I've seen the video and I can't decide the extent to which the sentiment is genuine/spontaneous or whether this was a calculated poly to get the sypathy vote that has helped her so much in the past.

The fact that she recovers from her tearfulness to go on to indirectly attack Obama on the ready on day one thing makes me lean towards the idea this is premeditated. But ppart of me is astounded that the clintons would engage in such a risky gambit. I wonder if this is the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass in the final minutes of a game in which your down by ten. The problem is that she needs the unlikely pass not only to be completed, but pull off an onside kick and a quick field goal too. There just may not be enough time.

I also don't know how this plays. It may get her some symapthy and some attention to her attacks on Obama. It's like this is a twist on the adgae that it is better to attack from a defensive position. HIllary may be calculating that it is better to attack from a tearful position. But the risk is that after losing her temper in the debate that people start to question her emotional temprament to be commander in chief. Emotional lability kind of undermines stregnth and experience.

In any case, there probably is a bit of genuine sadness on her part. We may consider it entitilement, but maybe she really thinks she desrves this on the merits and so this has to be personally devastating to her, regardless of what she expresses or contrives in public. I think Obama's best response, if any, is to be as gracious as possible towards her, despite the way she has treated him, all the smears, etc. At this point, graciously turning the cheek may be Obama's best move.

Posted by RKA | January 7, 2008 4:51 PM

I've seen the video and I can't decide the extent to which the sentiment is genuine/spontaneous or whether this was a calculated poly to get the sypathy vote that has helped her so much in the past.

Hillary's problem is precisely this: nobody knows when she's actually being real and when she's just doing what Mark Penn or her husband and her ambitions compel her to do. Even when she tears up and seems to be finally emoting something real, even then most of us have our doubts.

Posted by tinisoli | January 7, 2008 5:15 PM

Sleep deprivation is a big factor for the tears. Once I was giving a closing statement in a criminal trial and it was one which I had meant to be somewhat emotional, and I had, of course, rehearsed it many times, but doing it in front of the jury I was crying quite visibly, much more emotional than I had ever meant to be. And I know for a fact it was the sleep deprivation. I've been seeing signs of that in Clinton for over a week.

On a separate note, "some of us are right and some of us are not" - whoa! what? That is major tone shift. Too major. And also something that is so strong that it needs support in the speech itself, not some "see previous comments I've made on the subject of mandates in health care" invisible thought bubble that I have to fill in myself.

Posted by Phoebe | January 7, 2008 5:15 PM

Ambinder cuts Clinton's quote off right before she says:

"Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one and some of us haven't really thought that through enough."

That editing on Ambinder's part is crucial, because it is precisely that pivot into her standard attack line on Obama that is making many otherwise sympathetic people question the genuineness of this episode.

Posted by DTM | January 7, 2008 6:59 PM

First read is reporting that there were allegdly some hecklers at the Hillary speech in salem tell her to "Iron my Shirt."

I call plant on this one. It fits with the message of the day. First you cry to get sypathy from female voters and then just by coincidence there are sexist hecklers in an audience later that day? C'mon, people heckle candidate because they are anti-abortion, anti-war, 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Has anyone heard of someone heckling a female candidate to "Iron my Shirt." This does not pass the smell test. I was somewhat inclined to give HIllary a little beneift of the doubt on the crying thing, but the fact that she then went of to attack Obama in the same breath and now this so-called heckling strongly suggests to me that this is nothing but a last-ditch effort to play up the gender card as much as possible to stem the bleeding. I find it rather pathetic and highly manipulative. This is smells like that kid who pretended she had cancer to meet Hannah Montana.

Posted by RKA | January 7, 2008 7:19 PM

RKA is on to something. The "Iron my Shirt" thing seemed to good to be true, an excuse to get her "highest glass ceiling there is" comment out yet again. Here's why it's not just conspiracy theory madness: Remember Ambinder's post just a day or two ago, with Hillary's eight-step plan for recovering in NH: "Play the gender card. Hard."

Posted by RaymondA | January 7, 2008 9:25 PM

I see nothing wrong with crying when you are truly touched or saddened by something. But we all know that in the Clinton family, Bill cries, not Hillary. I watched her at that event, and I have never seen a more ridiculous, calculated display of emotion. Can't you see the conversation that took place the night before? "Okay, I'm too stiff. The American people want more emotion from me. Crying! How does crying poll? Someone get Penn on the phone and find out how crying polls!" Just another reinvention of Hillary Clinton...now she's soft and human, not really the b*tch-in-charge we've all seen for the last 15+ years. Come on , people! You cannot be falling for this! I'm sure the tears were real, but they were for her soon-to-be-lost legacy, not the American dream.

Posted by Stacy Blake | January 7, 2008 11:31 PM