Liberal> Roger Simon> Is It Now Ok For Our Presidential Candidates To Weep

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Is It Now OK for Our Presidential Candidates to Weep?

DES MOINES, Iowa — It has been a trail of tears. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all cried on television in the days before the Iowa caucuses.

What they did was warm, human and utterly genuine. A few years ago, we would have called them sissies.

But America has grown far too sensitive for that. Today, we look upon male lacrimation as a combination of manly sensitivity and manly courage.

Santorum seems to have done the best with his tears. He ended in a virtual tie for first place with Mitt Romney.

Gingrich and Perry didn't do as well. Gingrich, as is his wont, tried a range of emotions in Iowa, including rage. He called Romney a "liar," a word almost never uttered in political discourse — unless President Barack Obama is addressing Congress, that is. (Bob Dole bitterly called for George H.W. Bush to "stop lying about my record" in 1988, but Bush didn't and became president.)

Lying in politics happens every day, of course. Public crying is a newer phenomenon. There used to be no crying in politics. And if there was, it could be ruinous.

In 1972, Ed Muskie appeared to shed a tear or two while defending the honor of his wife outside the offices of the Manchester Union Leader just before the New Hampshire primary.

Muskie said later it was merely melted snow, but some reporters saw it differently, and the damage was done. Muskie was finished as a presidential candidate.

And it took 36 years for crying to re-emerge.

When Hillary Clinton teared up in public just before the New Hampshire primary in January 2008, her campaign staff grew terrified — a female candidate had to be strong! — and she was forced to do damage control.

"I actually have emotions," she said on CNN.

"If you get too emotional, that undercuts you," she said on "Access Hollywood." "A man can cry; we know that.

Lots of our leaders have cried. But (for) a woman, it's a different kind of dynamic."

But after Clinton won New Hampshire, everybody decided her crying was a good thing. Barack Obama's campaign decided it was the reason she won, in fact.

"Did her choking up have a positive effect among women? Did they say, 'We are not going to run her out of the race here'?" an Obama adviser told me. "There is no other reason we can see. Every poll showed us even with Clinton with women, and then we lose women to her. There was a big gender gap that didn't show up until yesterday."

Clinton agreed. "Yesterday," she said in her victory speech in New Hampshire, "I found my own voice."

Unfortunately, her voice remained firm and steady for the rest of the race, and she lost her fight for the Democratic nomination.

Ironically, her husband had been one of the few sitting presidents to cry in public.

On June 14, 1993, Bill Clinton announced his nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court in a Rose Garden ceremony. Ginsburg remained dry-eyed as she made her acceptance speech, but Clinton wiped a tear from his cheek as Ginsburg thanked her late mother.

Losing candidates often joke about crying.

When the Gerald Ford-Bob Dole ticket lost in 1976, Dole said, "Contrary to reports that I took the loss badly, I want to say that I went home last night and slept like a baby — every two hours, I woke up and cried."

And Adlai Stevenson, who lost the presidency twice to Dwight Eisenhower, repeated a story told by Abraham Lincoln about the man who lost an election and was asked by his friends how he felt the next day. He said he felt "like a little boy who stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh."

But that was the 19th century. Today, nobody is too old or too male or too anything to cry.

Political life is but a vale of tears.

Oh, yeah, one more thing: The presidential candidates and their super PACs spent more than $12.6 million just on TV ads in Iowa.

Want a hankie?

To find out more about Roger Simon, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.