Tuesday, January 8, 2008

New Hampshire Feels Hillary's Pain...and Rewards Her.

Tomorrow, the world, well our corner of it, will be all abuzz at Hillary Clinton's victory in New Hampshire. On the ropes after the Iowa Caucuses, where Senator Clinton lost handily to Barack Obama, she has restored herself to front runner status, if only just, by defeating Senator Obama in The Granite State. Hillary's tears may have saved her, for now, allowing her to capture that crucial sucker vote that the pollsters never seem to take. And whether Clinton's tears were real or fake seems to be the question du jour, but what ought to be investigated instead is what kind of a person allows their tear ducts to fill in full view of the voters. Crying didn't work for Ed Muskie back in the seventies, but then he actually wept, whereas Hillary just welled up. Shrewd, eh. We'll probably never know if HRC's piquant display of vulnerability was real or faked, (recall the old adage which applies equally well to both acting and politics, "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made.") but let's face it, after Tuesday night's-what would one call it- I know, "non debate speakathon", where it was revealed to Hillary by the event's moderator that voters found Senator Clinton less likeable than either John Edwards or Obama, the temporal correlation between that moment and Clinton's public emotional display is, well, of interest.

In the meantime, the U.S. economy continues to fall apart as reflected in the orderly but savage decline in share prices. Gold is another canary in the coal mine as it slices towards $900 dollars an ounce like the proverbial hot knife though butter. Trouble is brewing big time and if something doesn't change soon, and there's no real reason it should, something besides
Hillary's tears, something far more real and meaningful, will be grabbing the headlines away from the latest primary victor.

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