Looks like Hillary’s near-tearful moment over the terrible tragedy for the American polity that awaits us if the good forces she represents don’t win–which is what she was saying, if not actually feeling, when she fell apart–will hurt her and if not a Muskie moment, could signal the breakdown of her campaign in N.H. People excuse her by saying, "She’s exhausted," but so was Muskie, and so is Obama. Part of the reason a campaign works is we get to see the candidates tested by exhaustion, if not an actual world crisis. Hillary seemed girlish, and afraid to express her true feelings, whatever they are.
It is interesting to compare her tearinesss with Obama’s non-tears. On NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams handed Obama the latest Newsweek with a beautiful cover image from his Iowa victory speech and the phrase: "Our Time for Change Has Come." Obama hadn’t seen the arresting image. Williams said, with a soft thrill in his voice, How does this make you feel? Obama said it made him think of his mother, who’s not here. How proud she would be. Then he said that at such moments his mother’s chin trembled and her voice shook, and she broke down. Obama did a little bit of a parody of his mother crying, then tossed the magazine back to Williams. Peter Kaplan, the highly-intuitive editor of the Observer, always said to me that Obama, like Jack Kennedy, is cold, and that’s good. In that moment, showing no emotion when others of us would have been unable to speak, I saw the same thing. Isn’t that the guy you want with the little nuclear football?
