Clinton choked up at NH roundtable
Posted: Monday, January 07, 2008 2:01 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones and NBC's Christina Jamison
PORTSMOUTH, NH, Jan. 6 -- Hillary Clinton teared up at the end of a roundtable with undecided voters here the day before the primary.
After she fielded questions on how to stop manufacturing jobs from going overseas, housing, No Child Left Behind, and how she would get her healthcare plan through Congress, 64-year-old Marianne Pernold-Young, of Portsmouth, asked the senator how she got out of the house in the morning and who did her hair.
Clinton joked about having help with her hair and then began to get choked up and teary-eyed.
"It's not easy and I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards (voice breaks a bit, people applaud) This is very personal for me it's not just political, it's -- I see what's happening, we have to reverse it and some people think elections are a game.
They think it's who is up or who is down. It's about our country it's about our kids' futures it's really about all of us together you know let's (inaudible) just put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it each one of us cause we care about our country. But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one and some of us haven't really thought that through enough and so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for getting really spinning out of control this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced," Clinton said.
She then began to compose herself.
"So as tired as I am -- and I am. And as difficult as it is to try and keep up what I try to do on the road - like occasionally exercise and try to eat right, it's tough when the easiest food is pizza - I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation so I'm gonna do everything I can to make my case and you know the voters get to decide. Thank you."
Afterwards, a woman who had been on the roundtable told Clinton that she had been undecided but was now supporting her.
The meeting came one day before Clinton faces a crucial second test. It was a continuation of the "conversation" with voters the senator relaunched Friday after her devastating defeat in Iowa.
During the roundtable, Clinton tried to hammer home the notion that she was a 'doer not a talker', saying she was re-elected to the Senate not on basis of what she had promised but on what she had done and that she could point to the lives she had changed here in New Hampshire. In Saturday's debate, the senator criticized her chief rivals as being all talk and no action.
Reaction from Edwards, others
During the media frenzy that followed the near-tearful moment, the woman who asked the question, Pernold-Young, said she had been undecided before she arrived but would now vote for Clinton.
"I'm shaken, I'm delighted with her. I'm in love," she said. "I think she gave us her soul."
Two women looking on wondered aloud whether the press would make this into an "Ed Muskie moment". One of the women then touched her hand to her chest and said it was a "beautiful moment."
In a weekend interview with Access Hollywood, Clinton commented on candidates and tears.
"It's that difficult position that a woman candidate is in, because if you get too emotional that undercuts you. A man can cry, we know that. Lots of our leaders have cried. But a woman, that's a different kind of dynamic," Clinton said.
When asked if he had a problem with the senator crying, one of only two men on the 16-person roundtable, said he did not.
"I don't have a problem with it. I see it as a human attribute, so it doesn't bother me," said the father of two young girls.
John Edwards was asked in Lakeport about reports that Hillary had teared up.
"I really don't have anything to say about that," he said. "I think what we need in a commander in chief is strength and resolve, and presidential campaigns are a tough business, but being president of the United States is also a very tough business. And the president of the United States is faced with very very difficult challenges every single day, difficult judgements every single day. What I know is that I'm prepared for that, and I'm in this fight for the middle class, foer the future of this country, for the long haul."
Tina Bruce, a roundtable participant from nearby Exeter, said afterwards that she was pleased to have been part of such an event, but that she was still decideding among the New York senator, Obama and Edwards.
"I would like to see her get the country as a whole motivated. I want the whole country behind her," Bruce said, adding that she had a lot of Republican friends who simply couldn't stand her.
"I'm not sure if Obama would do better," she said.
Roundtable participant Elizabeth Holcomb, a stay-at-home mom also from Exeter, who said before the event that she was leaning toward supporting Obama, had changed her mind by the end.
"She said a lot of things that resonated with me, like that we should have a stake in our health care and in our schools and I really believe that," Holcomb said.
