I can't figure out how to upload video (I am so computer illiterate!) but you've all seen this. Was it for real? It's an ongoing disagreement in our house. I believe no woman would take a chance on crying publicly as a stunt because it brings all the stereotypes to mind for potential voters. Can a woman who cries because she's losing in a primary be taken seriously as Commander in Chief.
I think Hillary cried out of tiredness and frustration.
My husband thinks it was a strategy to humanize her since this is one of the biggest knocks against her--that she is inhuman.
What do you think? Did it make you more or less sympathetic to her candidacy?
Keep this in mind. When Hillary cried, nobody died. Okay, bad joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVlwH7-05Fk
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35 comments:
It seems like she's resigned to losing in this video, doesn't it?
I think it was sincere. I feel kind of bad for Hillary. I disagree with many (most?) of her policies but I don't think she would be that bad a president.
I wouldn't be upset with Obama either, or McCain, Guiliani, or Thompson. I think this election has the deepest pool of candidates I can remember.
I don't buy it. She was still taking potshots at Obama during this little talk. If that was her personal self coming out, then IMO, she really is a bitch. Also, my husband listened to it (on the radio) and said it sounded staged... tonal inflections, etc. sounded rehearsed.
Sorry. I've never liked her. Bill was OK, had his faults, but never made it personal. She already has a track record of taking things too personally (all the way back to the "vast right-wing conspiracy").
FTR I'm still on the fence. I like Obama a lot but it's not November yet!
It seems so early for resignation but yes it did seem like that. I wonder if your opinion on her sincerity is based on your take on the Clinton years.
I liked the Clinton administration but not the people that much. I guess I prefer Edwards but that seems to be remote right now. I like Obama too but he may be too soft, too pretty and too inexperienced. Oh, to have a president we respected, liked and trusted.
I knew this debate would come up the second after I saw her on TV. Never did it enter my mind while watching that it was anything but real, sincere. I mean, c'mon folks...this isn't Reagan playing a role.
Have you ever been so tired that a commercial could make you cry? I have. I don't think it was about feeling she was losing...I'm not sure what it was about...but I think she cares and knows she's being hacked to death by the press for no good reason.
And finally, it's all about gender, and if you don't think it is you're kidding yourself.
Do you guys/gals like George Bush? Vote now, we're giving away prizes for your opinions.
Do you like George Bush?
She is certainly a victim of the media. They don't like her or they feel she's the strongest candidate and want her out because the media is so right wing.
I think her being choked up almost to tears was genuine and I am an Edwards supporter.
I agree, Chuck. If she were that good of an actress, the public would like her more because she'd take on a more genial facade.
I think she keeps trying to act, and she's really bad at it. I keep going back to a blog I read about her speech following the hostage incident at her campaign HQ in NH. She appeared presidential, the blogger thought, until a moment when the slightest smirk passed over her face. Like she knew she had the audience eating out of her hand.
I just think she's a huge phony. I think the same of Romney. Massive egos, both of them. And no, it's not about gender. Give me a woman candidate who I feel cares about me and my family. Oh hell, give me any candidate who feels that way.
If it is indeed about gender, then Hillary needs to comport herself in such a way as not to give her critics ammunition. She needs to pull the claws in and stop attacking Obama so ruthlessly. Right now she looks like an hysterical bitch - exactly what most people thought of her to begin with. Why on earth has she cultivated that image? Oh, right - she has to appear "strong." So the tears must have been her bid to appear more... sensitive? Feminine? Unfortunately I think trying to play the "victim" just makes it worse. No one wants a "victim" president, whether male or female. Even Bill didn't play that card, though his supporters certainly did.
It makes me wonder whether she has studied the campaigns of other female world leaders to find out how they projected themselves and what won the public over, or if she decided simply to rely on good memories of Bill and the '90's.
I'm afraid after today the crying will be for real even if yesterday's was not. The tide has turned (and I don't know what turned it) and unless she begins really negative campaigning with some smoking gun about Baraka, it's probably over.
Actually, inasmuch as Clinton is the Dole of this campaign ("It's my turn, dammit!") and still has a fair amount of institutional support, I don't think it's close to over, even if Obama has a landslide, which I don't think he will. Like Christa Miller, I think it was a calculated ploy (Look! I'm human!), and inasmuch as both Clintons have been 1970s mainstream Republicans throughout their political careers, stalwarts of the Democratic Leadership Council that they have been, I don't think the righwing media is out gunning for them (however much the GOP candidates have enjoyed using her as a laugh line...GOP hatred of the Clintons has tended to puzzle me, unless they resent having their fire stolen, without most of the batshit loony baggage that Reagan and company folded in with the lust to help Big Business that the Clintons have shared)...Fox News Channel seems to have been most interested in attacking Ron Paul, NATIONAL REVIEW in getting Huckabee. The blander corporate media as seems pretty sanguine about Clinton, as long as she's the Establishment candidate. As much as it might not've been a ploy, it seemed pretty damned self-pitying.
I think it may help her pull some women who recently switched to Obama back in. But it also alienated other folks.
We haven't had a real Democrat in the White House since the sixties. Or maybe the forties. When was the last time a Republican tried to reach out to the left or even middle?
Well, of course Ron Paul's libertarianism puts him solidly anti-war, flabbergasting the other GOP candidates, and Huckabee is slickly trying to pretend to be a reasonable populist...but the last centrist Republican with national ambitions...hmmm. John Anderson, sort of. George Romney at times...Pat Paulsen, Stephen Colbert's spiritual father, ran as a Republican...it is pretty disgusting to recall that Nixon was the least bad president for labor we've had since Johnson, who was only marginally better for labor rights than Nixon.
Nixon's record in many areas holds up rather favorably. It shows how far to the right they've moved.
Staged! I have no doubt that one of her handlers went to her and said that the perception of her is one of a ball breaking super bitch (not my opinion, but a lot of people subscribe to this point of view). She sat down with some girlfriends and told it like it was, or something like that. It was a mighty gamble, but she did pretty good at pulling it off. Human, but not sentimental.
People keep forgetting that these are politicians. When was the last real emotional moment in politics when a politician broke down, for real? Muskie in '72? Nixon on the last day in the White House talking to his staff? For the most part these people are slippery, unfortunately because they have to be. That's the system at work.
Somone told me that Mitt Romney cries regularly but I've missed it.
It probably was one of the biggest mistakes of her campaign, staged or fake. Crying just doesn't look presidential, from either a man or woman.
I may be cynical, but I think it was totally staged.
BTW, anyone else annoyed or amused by those who keepin calling for a centrist party, usually more or less calling for a run by Michael Bloomberg, as if the Democratic Party has been remotely leftist...as witness the treatment of the leftmost candidates in the current presidential race, Gravel and Kucinich. Of course, they both have other strikes againstt them, but no moreso than their peers. If Paul didn't have so many internet neolibertarians and paleoconservatives behind him, he'd be similarly marginalized (and isn't it adorable watching Paul become the new Ayn Rand for all these folks who've been vaguely troubled by their alienation, before libertarianism has just now been invented for them!).
Leftmost Democratic national candidates, I should say. It seems Cynthia McKinney(!) is the odds-on favorite to get the the Green nod this time out.
The party that lacks a centrist position is the Republican Party. Where are all the Lindsays, Hatfields, Rockefellers and even George Romneys today.
Wow. This is a pretty tough blog. So much anger against Hillary. No matter what she says or does, she gets bashed and called names. As I said above, I am an Edwards supporter. However, if Hillary becomes the Democratic candidate, I will vote for her. And not only because I am a committed Democrat, but because I think she would do a pretty good job.
I think this is her problem. I would certainly vote for her as well as any Democrat. But she doesn't inspire love--or even like apparently. And these people are mostly Dems!
You would think that after the last seven years of having a likable President who one would like to have a beer with but who was incompetent, we would have learned our lesson and vote this time for intelligence and competence and forget likability. Apparently and sadly, not so.
And I think she is probably that in spades.
Too close to call on exit polls! Maybe crying worked-on purpose or not.
I'm not too impressed with Hillary Clinton's intelligence nor competence...she's not stupid, but she's no genius, and her competence can unfortunately be measured by just how competently she (and her husband's administration generally) made sure we'd have no national healthcare plan. This is not Hatred of Clinton, but fairly dispassionate assessment. And I've had no desire to have a beer with the spoiled dim fratboy incumbent, and will hold his elevation to the office initially forever against Sandra Day O'Connor, who supposedly regrets the decision (good. Hope it really keeps her up nights), and his retention against John Kerry, who couldn't be bothered to stand for anything clearly and forthrightly except that it should be enough to be a less spoiled dim fratboy in comparison. (Hint: you actually do have to give someone a reason to vote for you.)
I might well vote for a Democrat for President for the first time since (shudder) Mondale, when in 1984 in Virginia I found I couldn't vote for the best presidential candidate, by platform and aspiration, of my lifetime so far, Sonia Johnson of the Citizens Party (more or less the Green Party of 1979-1985 or so). Of course, since Johnson lived in Arlington, she couldn't vote for herself, either...the VA ballot only allowed the choice of Reagan, LaRouche, and Mondale. I will not vote for Cynthia McKinney, unless she convincingly cleans up her act in so very many ways, so I might actually mull a Clinton vote, particularly against a Huckabee or a McCain or a Romney. But it will also be with a shudder.
McCain wins, apparently.
But maybe Hillary too? Yikes.
Well, organization helps. I suspect, however, that early returns will favor Clinton, as Democratic regulars support the institutional candidate...and independents might well tend to go to the polls later. But I've thought, as I mentioned, it would be close.
I hope Richardson does suprisingly well...just to bother the newsies who've been trying to ignore Gravel and Kucinich, and who wanted to cut another reporter from each newsteam...
The polls regarding the Democratic race in Iowa were pretty accurate. However, the New Hampshire polls were way off. I wonder what the future holds now for all those pollsters. Almost makes me choke up and shed a tear.
All this constant polling has to have an impact on elections. And I guess when Hillary cried, Obama's win died.
So crying still works for women.
The polls themselves might've made Obama voters complacent, or the apparent constant television barrage of teary Clinton, which I mostly didn't suffer/enjoy, apparently did affect some voters...either out of sympathy for HC, or out of resentment of the endless harping on it.
Cable "news" certainly is good for beating things to death.
Interesting how many people seem to think this narrow victory settles things...no moreso than if Obama would've gotten one. Hell, there's no good reason for Richardson to drop out yet, much less Edwards, much less a coronation tiara to be ordered.
But boy Gravel sure must not've enjoyed last night's returns.
The woman who asked the question of Hillary Clinton that led to her tearing up is being interviewed on the Boston-based show HERE AND NOW right now...I find it amusing she voted for Obama.
"So crying still works for women."
That may be a little too close cause and effect, Patti. People make their choices for the weirdest reasons.
I'm curious, though, who Christa means by, "... other female world leaders." I had a prof repeat (endlessly) that if you looked at Margaret Thatcher's policies and actions as PM she was really a man. I don't know about Golda Mier or Indira Ghandi or Benezir Bhutto or the current leader of Germany, but my guess is the way they, "projected themselves and what won the public over," was by avoiding any kind of policies that threatened the current 'gender status quo.'
At a recent Hillary Clinton speech a couple of men were in the audience shouting, "Iron my shirts."
It's sure about gender for somebody...
John-I think a lot of women who had deserted Hillary due to Obama's charismatic and energizing speeches in NH, were reminded of their commitment to electing her (or a woman). I personally have never found crying to be effective. You have to stay on the precipice of real tears and it's hard not to fall off and drown. She nailed it. For real or not.
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