Hillary's Moment

They're calling it "the moment."

Most of you who keep up with the news know what I'm talking about: Hillary Clinton getting emotional in a restaurant in Portsmouth, NH, when asked by a sympathetic suporter how she keeps going.

The quote is from the AP (condensed to just her words):

"It's not easy. 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've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards. So. 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. And some people think elections are a game. They think it's like who's up or who's down. It's about our country. It's about our kids' futures. It's really about all of us together. 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. And so when we look at the array of problems we have and the potential for it getting — really spinning out of control, this is one of the most important elections America's ever faced. So as tired as I am — and I am — and as difficult as it is to try to kind of keep up with 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 going to do everything I can to make my case and, you know, then the voters get to decide."

It's amazing that even while she's on the verge of choking up she can get in a little dig at Barack Obama ("Some of us are ready and some of us are not.")

But what's interesting is that people are speculating whether or not this was calculated -- an attempt to get people to see Hillary Clinton as a real human being, with feelings, instead of the snappish shrew of the first part of Saturday's debate in Manchester.

Was it an act? Or was it genuine? At this point does it matter?

The older pundits will compare it to the famous scene of Edmund Muskie seemingly in tears in the New Hampshire race in 1972, which cost him his shot at the White House. Tears back then disqualified you for running for president. What does it signify now?

Does it mean that Hillary knows that she's lost the New Hampshire primary -- and lost big -- and that Barack Obama is going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party?

I have no idea. I think that Senator Clinton was being genuine, but that it hardly matters. If Barack Obama beats her by less than 10 points tonight she'll claim a moral victory -- "The Comeback Kid Part II." If she loses by more than 10 points it could look hopeless, in spite of the fact that there are a lot of primaries looming up ahead and a lot of delegates to try and acquire.

It's not going to be over after tonight. But we may see the beginning of the end of the Clintons as a real power in American politics. Elections, Bill Clinton was fond of saying, are about the future. And Hillary Clinton, with all her much vaunted experience and her wonkish expertise and all her baggage, is starting to look more and more like the past.

Tom Moran