Politics of weeping has evolved

When Hillary Clinton had her much-publicized teary spell in New Hampshire while discussing the rigors of campaigning for the presidency of the United States, it didn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa key holder to know that Ed Muskie’s name would inevitably figure prominently in the ensuing autopsy by the news media.

As readers with serious mileage on their personal odometers know, the former Maine governor and United States senator saw his presidential aspirations begin to go the way of the 5-cent cigar when he allegedly wept during an emotional speech in the closing days of the 1972 New Hampshire primary.

Standing hatless on a flatbed trailer outside offices of the Manchester Union Leader newspaper in a light snowfall, Muskie berated conservative Union Leader publisher William Loeb for publishing scurrilous articles about him, as well as about his wife, Jane.

Cranking his famous temper into overdrive in defending his wife’s honor, Muskie – later to become secretary of state in the Carter administration – delivered a stemwinder of a speech. The television cameras captured what appeared to be tears on his face, media pundits decreed that crying was a fatal weakness in a presidential candidate, and practically overnight his campaign to win the Democratic nomination was toast. To his dying day, Muskie insisted it was actually melting snow, not tears, that had done him in.

“I’d cry, too, if I had to face Richard Nixon in the November election,” quipped Republican Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas after the incident. Turns out, it was George McGovern who should have cried.

Few may remember that Muskie actually won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, with 46 percent of the vote to McGovern’s 36 percent. But his winning margin fell short of expectations and it was downhill from there. McGovern won the nomination and got creamed by Nixon in November.

Ironically, though Muskie’s alleged tears may have cost him the Democratic nomination, Clinton’s quasi-weeping jag may have helped her win in New Hampshire and beyond. The politics of weeping has seemingly evolved from a definite nonstarter into a potential winning strategy.

While no one has ever suggested that Muskie was not 100 percent sincere in his skewering of Loeb, you don’t have to look far to find skeptics who will speculate that Clinton’s performance may have been calculated as part of a continuing effort to turn herself into whatever the polls say she must be. The welling-up on cue is first cousin to the ill-timed Clinton laugh employed earlier in the campaign to suggest the lady has a sense of humor, hard-core doubters insist.

One Internet blogger theorized that Clinton’s dramatic “Muskie moment” was designed to show her soft, vulnerable side. “Gee. Ya think?” a reader sarcastically responded. Another blogger wrote that Clinton had correctly calculated that the chance of pulling it off and picking up votes outweighed the risk of being perceived as a fraud and losing the primary.

To be fair, Clinton is probably no more calculating than any of her opponents, Democrat or Republican. Politics is largely the art of calculation – of knowing when to be sincere, and knowing when to fake it for any advantage that might accrue. Some pols are better than others at it.

Perhaps like many people, I may not always know when I am being finessed by an expert, but I sure can tell when I am watching a wannabe get caught in the act. During his Iowa campaign, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee assured reporters at a press conference that he had pulled from the air a television attack ad aimed at Mitt Romney, one of his competitors for the Republican presidential nomination. Then, with cameras rolling, he showed the reporters the ad in question, presumably in the hope that the entire country might see it on the evening news, thereby having his cake and eating it, too.

After a reporter confronted him on his transparent attempt to convey a false appearance of frankness and candor, Huckabee lamely explained that he had believed he was merely being helpful to reporters – he had presumed they would want to know which ad was being pulled.

I’m watching all this in my living room, thinking they can stick a fork in this guy most any time now, because he’s done: The man aspires to run with the big dawgs, but after that bonehead play he won’t even make it off the porch.

A few days later, Huckabee was the Republican winner in the Iowa caucus. Any minute now, I’m expecting a call from the home office, demanding I turn in my Highly Trained Observer badge.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may contact him by

e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.