Everyone knows Hillary cried (or something like it) for the first time in 35+ years of public life last Monday afternoon, in the heat of press coverage on the final day of campaigning before the New Hampshire.
After spending nearly a year in the Granite State, that sniffle became the most widely reported moment of her campaign. As Jodi Kantor in the New York Times wrote, what was remarkable about that moment was "...not that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton teared up. It was all the times she did not."
Less widely reported on that same day was the fear-inducing mailer Hillary Clinton sent to every woman in New Hampshire. I’ve kept most mailers I got from every Presidential candidate this year, and that mailer was absolutely the worst.
In the mailer, Hillary claims that Barack Obama is not a leader who will "stand up and protect [a women's right to choice]."
HIllary Clinton claimed that Obama could not be counted onto to support a woman's right to choice because he had voted "present" on a few abortion-oriented bills while in the Illinois legislature.
Never mind that Obama has a 100% approval rating from Planned Parenthood in Illinois. Never mind that Planned Parenthood asked him to vote present on those bills. Never mind that Obama's votes have been reported again and again. Never mind that the President & CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council said, "the poor guy is getting all this heat for a strategy we, the pro-choice community, did," said Pam Sutherland.
The mailer was a disgusting smear job from Hillary Clinton and her New Hampshire staff. It was meant to cast doubt in the minds of undecided pro-choice women voters on the last day of the campaign by relying on false and misleading information which had been widely discredited for months.
And you thought Hillary Clinton was going to bring change?
As Arianna Huffington put it just before the election, the Clinton camp tried every strategy possible to win — including tears and fears. That hack piece underscores why people want Obama. Smear pieces like Clinton’s represent the politics that have nothing to do with change or making the country better. Iraq, Energy, Health Care, the Environment, Education....none of it matters.
Instead, it’s all about the Clintons clinging desperately to what they perceive as their birthright.
Has Hillary Clinton no sense of shame?
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