The whole "Hilly cried" bit was a bit much for me. Not so much that she did it, but that it got analyzed and analyzed and analyzed. My inclination is to believe it was calculated, but how can I really ever know? And does it make a difference where she stands on the issues if she shed a tear about pressure? No. I don't like her beliefs. It has nothing to do with her emotional expression.
As a side note, for what it's worth, Karl Rove believes Hillary's scant emotional display was genuine.
Some of the analysis actually raises my eyebrow -- not about the "event", but about the analysis itself. Which is why I'm even mentioning this whole thing to begin with. There are those analysts out there who actually think that a bunch of New Hampshire women changed their minds about voting for Obama and switched to her because ... she shed a tear. Like, a day or two before voting. It reminds me a bit of the election process in the movie Brazil1.
I don't know about you, but I think that's bizzare. Because I don't think that way. And nobody I know thinks that way. Maybe it's the quality of the company I keep.
The other main idea explaining the "surprise" was that NH women who had been excited about Obama suddenly changed their minds after seeing the results of the Iowa primary -- and were now afraid that a woman wouldn't make it to the White House. Huh? They liked Obama until they thought he might win?
I've heard the argument that a straight democracy eventually leads to government by the stupid. I thought (at the time) that was a bit harsh. I'm not so sure anymore. I really do hope we're not so whimsical on our candidate of choice that our minds can be changed at the drop of a tear or a sudden shift on who the underdog is, or because he or she is black or white or male or female or southern or northern or whatever.
What I find most interesting is the adherence to the theory that if the polls said A on Sunday, and not-A happened on Tuesday, it must mean that something happened between Sunday and Tuesday to "change" the outcome.
It couldn't possibly be that the polls were just ... wrong.
1 For those of you who haven't seen it, each candidate was represented by a TV network. Ratings for each TV network were continuously, instantaneously being updated based on how many people were tuned in right then. At a certain time on Election Day, which ever network had the highest rating at that instant -- well the candidate who was represented by that network won the election.
To take it further to the brittle extreme, the programming on these networks had nothing whatsoever to do with the candidates or their politics. Programming was chosen soley to get the most people to tune in.
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