Is Hillary Trying to weep her way into the White House?
By Margery Eagan
The first time, I bought it.
Now I'm suspicious.
Yesterday, for the second time in a month, Hillary Clinton teared up
on the eve of a primary with the outcome looking tougher than
expected.
Are we looking at the first candidate in our history to weep her way
to the White House?
"This one here? I don't know," said Marianne Pernold Young, the New
Hampshire woman whose question there to Hillary ("How do you do it?")
sparked the first near-tears moment. Pernold Young believed that first
one genuine, though she voted for Obama anyway. "It's curious that she
should be crying again the day before another primary," she said.
"But, hey, listen, if it worked the first time, why not try again?"
Why not indeed? Even Hillary conceded her New Hampshire near-weep may
have turned around an expected double-digit win by Barack Obama.
Why shouldn't strategic tears go national?
Here's what happened: During a visit yesterday to Yale University,
where she met Bill Clinton at the law school, Hillary was introduced
to speak by an old boss who remembered how Hillary had come to
volunteer at the children's center there dressed mostly in purple and
sheepskin and bellbottoms.
Now we hope that you, the incomparable Hillary, said Penn Rhodeen,
will be president of the United States.
That's when Hillary raised her left hand to her cheek, brushed away
something beneath her eye and said, "I said I would not tear up.
Already we're not exactly on that path."
"Well, I don't know," said Marianne Pernold Young. "Twice in a row
this might backfire."
There are, of course, reasons Hillary might be crying. She's losing
her double-digit leads all across the country. Suffolk University -
the only poll close to correctly predicting the New Hampshire outcome
- yesterday reported that Obama, long a big-time underdog in
Massachusetts, now has a slight lead.
The list of defectors grows. The Yale Daily News, the student
newspaper at Hillary's law school alma mater, went for the other guy.
"To endorse her would be to endorse divisiveness and the politics of
manipulation," the paper said.
And progressive women who should be with her aren't, including Kate
Michelman, head of NARAL pro-choice America. Govs. Janet Napolitano
and Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Claire McCaskill - Democrats all - just
waxed eloquent in the Wall Street Journal about Obama. Caroline
Kennedy, Oprah and Maria Shriver campaigned for Obama in Los Angeles
on Sunday, Shriver urging Democrats to step "into this moment in
history." Oprah, lambasted as a sisterhood sellout for supporting
Obama, said having as front-runners a woman and black man means "we
have won the struggle (we) are free from the constraints of gender and
race."
In fact, Hillary mentions gender in almost every speech: She could be
the first woman president. Obama, meanwhile, almost never mentions
race. That's been Bill Clinton's job.
But as Super Tuesday dawns, it appears as though the Democratic race
has become less about race or gender and more about moving away from a
certain toxic worldview, the Clintons' worldview. It's a world of
polarization and Republican attack machines and right-wing
conspiracies and fistfights and bitter partisanship. It's a world
where Democrats are always right and Republicans are always wrong -
and evil too. It's a world where nothing ever gets done because
ideology trumps all and no one dares compromise. It's a world I'm sick
and tired of. Then, then, there's the appeal of Barack Obama's
rallying cry: not blue states, not red states, but United States. As
Super Tuesday dawns, we may be ready to crawl up out of the muck, and
reach for something more.
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