So was it the tears? That's the question many are asking following Sen. Hillary Clinton's surprising victory in New Hampshire, despite polls indicating she trailed Sen. Barack Obama by double digits going into the contest. Those polls came just days after Clinton was largely ridiculed in the male-dominated national media for becoming emotional on the campaign trail following her Iowa defeat.
Was Hillary Clinton's show of emotion a signal of strength or weakness? Tell us what you think.
Click here to see MSNBC's video of Clinton's emotional remarks.
Whether it was a spontaneous moment of emotion or a calculated move, many pundits, mostly male, were ready to write Clinton off after her perceived "Muskie moment." "Humanizing moment or show of weakness?" asked U.S. News & World Report. "Why is she crying?" asked The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol. "She's crying for herself and I don't believe it's genuine. I think it's entirely calculated."
But rather than signaling her defeat, Clinton's apparent moment of vulnerability struck a chord with female voters in New Hampshire, many of whom may have perceived her as being picked on and targeted by her male rivals who included Obama and John Edwards. Female voters flocked to Clinton in droves--57 percent of those who voted were women. According to NBC exit polls, Clinton claimed 46 percent of the female vote in New Hampshire to Obama's 34 percent. With male voters, Obama claimed 42 percent to Clinton's 30 percent.
Just days earlier in Iowa, Clinton lost the women's vote to Obama. So why the dramatic turnaround? Anecdotal evidence shows women were impressed with her humanity and saw it as a strength, not a weakness. "I think she's human," Joyce Connelly, a 76-year-old independent voter from Laconia, N.H., told MSNBC.
"Several New Hampshire women, some of them undecided until Tuesday, said that a galvanizing moment for them had been Mrs. Clinton's unusual display of emotion," reports The New York Times. "A moment (she) herself acknowledged as a breakthrough."
MSNBC believes this new, more emotional Clinton is the face voters are likely to see for the duration of the campaign. Clinton herself noted during her acceptance speech in New Hampshire that she "found her voice."
"Are we looking at a battle between Clinton and her army of women versus Obama and his army of independent crossover voting men?" asks MSNBC.
So how did Clinton take what could have been perceived as a critical moment of weakness and turn it into a rallying cry? Perhaps it comes down to the perception of how women leaders are perceived versus their male counterparts. In the March 2008 issue of DiversityInc magazine, national leaders from corporate America, government, entertainment and sports discuss women leadership and how that differs from the male vision of strength and success.
"We know how to manage relationships; we deal with conflict; we're always negotiating, and those are all such critical leadership skills that we underestimate at times," says Rosie Saez, senior vice president and Leadership Practices Group director for Wachovia, No. 11 on The 2007 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity® list.
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