Clinton Gets Emotional on Campaign Trail

[Justin Garrow]

Clinton Gets Emotional on Campaign Trail
January 07, 2008 12:34 PM
ABC News' Kate Snow Reports: Campaigning in New Hampshire one day before the first-in-the-nation primary, Senator Hillary Clinton got emotional and had tears in her eyes as she spoke with voters about how hard it is to balance a busy campaign life and her passion for the country's future.
The Senator from New York was sitting at a big table in Cafe Espresso in Portsmouth, New Hampshire with 16 undecided voters, mostly women, warmly and calmly taking questions.
Then she took an unexpected question from a woman standing in the back.
"My question is very personal, how do you do it?" asked Marianne Pernold Young, a freelance photographer from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She mentioned Clinton's hair and appearance always looking perfectly coifed. "How do you, how do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?"
Clinton began responding, jokingly. First talking about her hair: "You know, I think, well luckily, on special days I do have help. If you see me every day and if you look on some of the websites and listen to some of the commentators they always find me on the day I didn't have help. It's not easy."
But then, Clinton began getting emotional: "It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said.
Her voice breaking and tears in her eyes, she said, "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it."
Watch the video HERE.
"Some people think elections are a game, lot's of who's up or who's down, [but] it's about our country , it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together," she said.
"You know, some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds, and we do it, each one of us because we care about our country but some of us are right and some of us are wrong, some of us are ready and some of us are not, some of us know what we will do on day one and some of us haven't thought that through enough," she said in a veiled reference to her Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
"And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections American has ever faced," Clinton said.
After the event, Pernold Young told ABC News that she was glad Clinton showed emotion.
"That was real," Pernold Young said.
Another woman in the group, Alison Hamilton of Portsmouth, New Hampshire said she, like most of the people in the group, had been considering Obama.
But after seeing Clinton become emotional, she said she was going to vote for Clinton.
"That was the clincher," Hamilton said.
During the event, Clinton also had an exchange with an Obama supporter asking whether she can bring change, and why the Democrats haven't been able to affect change in Congress, despite taking power after the 2006 midterm elections.
"At the end of the day when the cameras are off what have you done?" asked the voter.
Clinton responded, arguing a politician's record is important.
"I know that to some people it sounds like there's a contradiction between change and experience... You can't have one without the other."
Clinton said people aren't aware of the small things the Democrats in Congress have accomplished because the war in Iraq is ongoing.
"You just keep going at it every single day," she said.
January 7, 2008 in Clinton, Hillary, Vote 2008: Democrats | Permalink | User Comments (395)
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/01/clinton-gets-em.html

[Volitzer]

Reality check !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Adrienne]

I don't mind her crying, what I mind is the reason why she was crying. It seemed like it was more the way her campaign was going than the state of America. 

Then, in the next breath, she attacked Barack Obama! 

I know what it is like to work really hard for something, than to find out it isn't going to happen, but it has to be more about personal ambition.

[Adrienne]

Clinton: 'I actually have emotions'
Posted: 10:45 AM ET


Watch Clinton discuss her emotional moment on the campaign trail.
(CNN) — Democrat Hillary Clinton talked to CNN's John Roberts about tearing up on the campaign trail Monday, saying the incident proves she has emotions.

"Well you know, I actually have emotions — I know there are some people who doubt that, but you know, I really am so touched by what I hear from people," said the New York senator. "It's usually about their problems.

“It's usually a mother who throws arm around me and says thank you for the Children's Health Care insurance program, or a man who drove here all the way here from New York to say I'd saved jobs in New York. That's really moving to me. That's how I judge the job I'm doing."

"So when this woman, this really kind woman, said to me, 'Well, how are you doing?' it was so touching to me," she said. "I'm so other-oriented. You know I'm not good about talking about myself. I don't get up and think about how I'm going to present myself. I think about, 'What am I going to do today to actually make a difference in someone's life?'"

The comments are in reference to Clinton's visible display of emotion at a campaign event in Portsmouth Monday morning, following a undecided voter's question about how the New York senator is dealing with the rigors of a presidential campaign.

"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," Clinton said, her voice breaking a bit.

"You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," she added, while the audience applauded. "This is very personal for me, it's not just political, it's [that] I see what's happening, we have to reverse it — just put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds."

[Adrienne]

Bill Clinton: Can't make Hillary 'younger'
Posted: 08:00 AM ET



The Clintons at a recent New Hampshire campaign stop. (Photo Credit: AP)

(CNN) – Bill Clinton joked Sunday night he is unable to change some of wife Hillary's chief differences with rival Barack Obama, the latest comments from the former president to cause a stir on the campaign trail.

At a campaign event in New Hampshire, Clinton conceded he and his wife "can't be a new story," and went on to suggest he can't make his wife morph into the senator from Illinois.

"I can't make her younger, taller, male, there's a lot I can't do," Clinton said to laughs.

"But if you want a president and need one, she would be by far the best," the former president added.

Clinton's comments come as most Granite State polls show his wife has fallen behind Obama in the final days before voters head to the polls. A new CNN/WMUR poll released Monday night has Obama 9 points ahead of the New York Democrat.

The comments aren't the first off-hand remarks from the former president to come under scrutiny, and he has attracted as many negative headlines as positive ones as he campaigns on behalf of his wife.

Last month, the former president came under fire for suggesting that if his wife is elected president, he and former President Bush would tour the world in a diplomatic mission to undo the harm the current president has done. Former President Bush, the current president's father, later said he had never agreed to such a trip. He's also taken heat for saying he was always opposed to the Iraq war and suggesting electing Obama would be a risk.

[Adrienne]

That last one was kind of a low blow!  Bill should be kept off the campaign trail if he has lost the knack of knowing what to say.

[Volitzer]

The Clintons need to just bow out.

[Kristina]

Bill Clinton targets media coverage of Obama
Posted: 03:40 PM ET




Watch Bill Clinton's comments Monday night.
(CNN) – On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, former President Bill Clinton criticized the media for not pressing Barack Obama more fully on Iraq, and accused the Illinois senator of shifting his position to reflect changing attitudes on the war.

"It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war," Clinton said at a campaign stop in Hanover, New Hampshire.

"And you took that speech you're now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since."

He added, "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."

Clinton's wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, is battling Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The former president briefly acknowledged that his wife's senior campaign advisor, Mark Penn, was mistaken to claim that Obama had no bounce out of Iowa after winning the state's caucuses because the poll numbers on the day after were relatively unchanged.

Then he abruptly changed the subject — suggesting that Obama's campaign had employed underhanded tactics.

"What did you think about the Obama thing calling Hillary the senator from Punjab? Did you like that? Or what about the Obama handout that was covered up, the press never reported on, implying that I was a crook. Scouring me — scathing criticism over my financial reports. Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn't take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon.

"So you can take a shot at Mark Penn if you want. It wasn't his best day. He was hurt. He felt badly we didn't do better in Iowa," said Clinton. "But the idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true — and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months — is a little tough to take. Just because of the sanitizing coverage that's in the media doesn't mean the facts aren't out there."

He added, lightheartedly, "Otherwise, I do not have any strong feelings about that subject."

The former president made the remarks as polls showed his wife trailing Obama in this important first-in-the-nation primary state.

[Kristina]

Actually, Barack Obama was asked those questions when he was on Meet the Press for an hour with Tim Russert (Hillary only did 20 minutes at a satellite link-up).

I do agree that the press is playing up Hillary's scene a bit much.  Look at the tape, and she isn't even crying.