New Hampshire (updated with links)

I'm waiting for some pundit to explain to me why Hillary Clinton's "unscripted" emotional moment signals a revival of her campaign, while Howard Dean's unscripted emotional moment from 2004 was a career-killing gaffe. (Which is not to say that Hillary will not make a career-killing gaffe during the remainder of the campaign.) Dean's outburst at least had the virtue of being unquestionably honest, if poorly expressed. Even so, I've never been able to figure out just why that killed his campaign, especially after being subjected to what were, to my mind, the infinitely more embarassing syntactical stumblings of candidate George W during that particular political season.

But when Hillary chokes back her tears, suddenly she is a front-runner again. Feminist pundits have been quick to point out that plenty of male politicians have shed a watery drop or two without risking their credibility, but whenever I see the by now familiar footage of Hillary's emotional confession, nothing about it seems authentic to me, unless what we are in fact seeing is an exhausted politician coming off of a resounding defeat in the Iowa contest.

Obama, by contrast, seems to be a more emotionally honest candidate, if that description is not a complete oxymoron. Few people who have seen or heard him speak would, I think, deny the man's impressive oratorical ability, or even the quality of his faith in America, but I keep asking myself: "Is that enough?"

A colleague of mine who supports Obama pointed out to me today that, for her, it's now all about the running mate. Obama needs to select, in her words, a "Cheney"--not another Great Satan who feeds on the documents of democracy and the blood of Iraqi children, but an older, experienced pol who knows his/her way around foreign policy.

Because I've spent much of my voting life in Utah, I've always had the luxury of voting my heart, if only because my non-conservative vote is meaningless here. So I voted for Jesse Jackson in 1988, and Ralph Nader in 2000. The one occasion where I felt I had to vote strategically was in the last presidential "election" when I was living in Ohio; at that stage, it was back to my grilled-cheese sandwich strategy. As it turned out, the Ohio election was a complete sham, and the Democratic nominee whose name shall not be repeated here chose to ignore the enormous discrepancies in the Ohio (and Florida and Michigan) polling for the sake of the country. If only he had known.

Anyway, next month's Utah primary gives me another opportunity to cast a potentially meaningful vote for the Democratic Convention. I was considering Richardson for my vote, but it looks like his candidacy is not going to survive much longer. So I'm back to my head versus heart problem. Experience over passion? Stirring speeches over crocodile tears? Bleh.

I'm not entirely certain why I doubt Hillary's tears. She strikes me as a bit too posed, a bit too polished, and she sets off my bullshit detector. Some might argue that my votes for Jackson or Nader serve as an indication that my bullshit detector is offline, but I've never felt embarassed by those votes (again, I have the luxury of casting what I know to be meaningless votes anyway). It's entirely subjective and emotional, but after the New Hampshire results, I didn't feel any sense of excitement or promise, only boredom at seeing a professional politician manipulate her way to a win.

Is Obama any different? Time will tell. Until South Carolina, I'm trying to choke down a rather bland sandwich.

More on Hillary and the NH incident:

Judith Warner on "Emotion without Thought" (with a lot of interesting comments)

A NYT article: "Women's Support for Clinton Rises in Wake of Perceived Sexism"

Maureen Dowd: "Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?"

Hardball host Chris Matthews' inflammatory comments on the reason why Hillary Clinton is a candidate for president.