Crying Game A Tricky One For Politicians

Shedding Tears On The Campaign Trail Is OK For Some Candidates — But Not Hillary Clinton

(AP)  Having a Muskie moment isn't necessarily a bad thing anymore.

Tears, once kryptonite to serious presidential candidates, today are more often seen as a useful part of the political tool kit.

Mitt Romney this week became the latest candidate to show his sensitive side. Tears welled in his eyes Monday as he spoke on the New Hampshire campaign trail about watching the casket of a soldier killed in Iraq and imagining that he had lost a son of his own. A day earlier, he choked up on NBC's "Meet the Press" in speaking about his religion.

His campaign seemed skittish about two such episodes in as many days.

But for a candidate who sometimes comes across as cool and detached, showing a little emotion may not be something to cry about.

The nation has come a long way in the 35 years since a New Hampshire sob story ended Sen. Edmund Muskie's 1972 presidential campaign. Muskie's campaign slid off the tracks after it was reported that he had cried in response to a newspaper attack on his wife. He went to his grave maintaining that it had been melted snowflakes, not a tear, in his eye.

Fifteen years later, in 1987, former Democratic Rep. Pat Schroeder got grief for crying as she announced that she would not be a presidential candidate.

She's still catching flak about it today, mostly from women.

"Oh, my gosh, I got a devastating e-mail about it from a woman writer just a couple of days ago," Schroeder said in an interview. "I want to say, 'Wait a minute, we are talking 20 years ago.' It's like I ruined their lives, 20 years ago, with three seconds of catching my breath."

Schroeder says she used to keep a "crying file" on weepy politician episodes, but it got so huge she threw it out.

"Guys have been tearing up all along and people think it's marvelous," Schroeder said, pointing to episodes stretching back to Ronald Reagan.

But for female candidates, crying clearly is still in the no-fly zone.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is not allowed to cry.

At least not in public.

She is allowed to weep privately, though.

And maybe even tell us about it.

In her memoir, "Living History," Clinton wrote about the moment her husband admitted his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

"I could hardly breathe," she wrote. "Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, 'What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?"'

But Clinton may shed no tears on the campaign trail. The same people who complain that she is cold and unemotional would seize on it as a sign of weakness and vulnerability, says Schroeder.

"For some reason," she says, "we still are a little nervous for women."

Aubrey Immelman, a political psychologist at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minn., said women "are in a default position" in the crying game.

"It would have bad consequences for Hillary if she teared up in public," Immelman said. "That's unfair, but I think that's probably how it still works in our society."

For male candidates, Immelman says, whether crying is OK or not "depends on context." Tough-guy candidates like Rudy Giuliani or John McCain, with his military background, can tear without fear, he says, and those talking about emotional issues such as fallen troops can emote without risk.

President Bush, for example, often chokes up in talking about the war dead, or visiting with the victims of natural disasters.

Former President Clinton was such an eager emoter, says Immelman, that he "had a reputation for turning on and off the emotion to serve his own ends."

Romney, on the other hand, is seen as more stiff and formal. "For him to show a little bit of emotion could maybe soften that image a little bit," Immelman said.

"I'm a normal person, I have emotions," Romney told reporters. "I have emotion just like anyone else. I'm not ashamed of that at all."

Clearly, Americans have mixed emotions about showing emotion.

[abbe91]

"You should have strangled George W. in the crib while you had the chance.
Posted by SgtRDS at 05:07 PM : Dec 19, 2007"

Or, even better, he "should have pulled out before the job was done", very popular expression for right wing nuts these days ...

[sgtrds]

RowdyTexan2

I was raised Catholic, but am now and atheist. Still for a part of my life I was a very devout Christian even to the point of witnessing on street corners. I have no problem with people who have faith in a god, but the problem for me comes in when they play that faith for political power and/or money, as most of today''s politicians and religious leaders do. They wave the bible with one hand and pick their followers pockets with the other. They preach about the life of a man of humility and peace, while launching wars for profits. They preach christian values with one breath and intolerance and hate with the next. They preach the words of one who said to help the poor, while they live in 10,000sq foot mansions built with "contributions" from followers on Social Security. Politicians or evangelical leaders, they''re both con artists.

[rowdytexan2]

Posted by SgtRDS at 06:47 PM : Dec 19, 2007

I agree, Sir.

I was raised in the Christian faith, and I am a believer, however I tend to try to apply Bible teachings to the real world. I believe Jesus was a true prophet and I haven''t found a batter way of living my life than by New Testament TEachings.

It really saddens me that Christians are being judged on the basis of these people who use Christianity like some badge of honor. That claim to worship out of one side of their mouth and lie like a rug right out of the other. That can take the law of the land and bend it so it appears they''re doing right, when most of the world knows they not.

If George Bush ever consulted anybody but Cheney and the other rich SOB''s, it certainly had to be right up there with evil. It couldn''t have been the God we believe created this beautiful world and sent his words down to us to respect and live in peach with each other.

[sgtrds]

rudy654

I think that''s true and that the people who should be the most angry at them should be real Christians. I mean these politicians mouth the christian words that agree with what they want to do and many of the so-called "leaders" of the religious right wing do the same. I see few if any what could be considered real christians running for national office or running any of the major evangelical churches, just pander politicians in both cases.

[rudy654-2009]

And then we have this pandering bas***** Romney crying when talking about religion? Hell he''''d be better off praying that we atheists are right about there not being a god, because if Jesus comes back then people like him are the first ones he''''s going to toss into hell for being murderous hypocrites! Him, Bush, Cheney, the whole lying pile of them. Posted by SgtRDS at 05:01 PM

In fact, I have often felt that most of the so-called religious do not believe in a god at all, but merely use it for whatever political advantage. Otherwise, it would not make sense that they feel that they can obey some of the commands, and disregard others when it suits them. The other factor is that many so-called Christians like to tout that it doesn''t matter what they do, because they are saved and once saved, always saved! Sin at your leisure!

[sgtrds]

Grand Forks AFB actually, which was not as bad as Minot back then because it was close to the Minnesota border which was an 18 year old drinking state at the time.

And thank you Questionnews. I appreciate that.

[speakinup]

Oh yeah - I remember you mentioning that once. Minot. I remember my pops saying disparaging remarks about that place. I don''t think he ever made it there. It was more rumored to be the ''Beau Geste'' of the Air Force locations.

Had a few of those assignments myself.

[questionnews]

SgtRDS

Regardless of your political views and whether or not people agree with you. Thank you for serving!!!!

[sgtrds]

No, I was stationed in North Dakota most of my time, but went TDY to South Vietnam twice as part of a group to retrieve computer information left behind for the use of ARVN that it was decided should not be there where when it was obvious the South was going to collapse.

[speakinup]

SgtRDS - really, the air force huh. My ole man was in Vietnam in the airforce. Tui Hoi ?

[sgtrds]

Actually I was in the Air Force, not the marines and it was during Vietnam, not Iraq. Still as usual the truth never got in the way of you taking a cheap shot now did it? In fact the truth never has meant a da*mn to you or any of your fellow Bush as*skissers here on any subject, so no big surprise.

[speakinup]

You know what, Questionnews, the only think I can think of that would make this former Marine so upset would be if he got his privates shot off in Iraq.

Tell us it''s not true SgtRDS...

[sgtrds]

Questionnews

Never saw the movie, but as a patriotic American I consider it my sacred duty to pis*s on Bush every chance I get. It''s right up there with saluting the flag, saying the pledge and believing in the law, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

[questionnews]

SgtRDS

You are the Ray Finkle of posters and Bush is your Dan Marino. " A bit obsessed I think!!"

[sgtrds]

I loved it when George H.W. Bush sobbed in public in front of the Florida legislature, after it finally hit him that it was the moron George that everyone will remember him for being the father of. Too bad George. You should have strangled George W. in the crib while you had the chance. then the rest of us would have had to shed any tears over the murders he''s committed and the destruction he''s brought to America through his ignorance, incompetence and arrogance. If you had pulled out when you had the chance then we wouldn''t have to argue over pulling out of Iraq now.

[sgtrds]

Why should the republican candidates cry? They should, but only in shame for the depths their party has dragged America down into and, worse, for the number of solider they''ve murdered in their whipped up war for profit in the Middle-East. These warmongering pig should spend the rest of their pathetic lives crying for the tens of thousands of human beings they''ve slaughtered in the past 7 years.

And then we have this pandering bas***** Romney crying when talking about religion? Hell he''d be better off praying that we atheists are right about there not being a god, because if Jesus comes back then people like him are the first ones he''s going to toss into hell for being murderous hypocrites! Him, Bush, Cheney, the whole lying pile of them.