Opinionist: Hillary, Please Don't Cry

Don't cry, Hillary. No, seriously, don't. You probably already heard that Hillary Clinton cried at a campaign event (Globe), and it took Bostonist a while to process.

When a woman in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, asked Clinton how she stayed so upbeat, Clinton started crying and said (among other things), "It's not easy. It's not easy. This is very personal for me. It is not just political. It is not just public. I see what's happening. We have to reverse it. And some people think elections are a game; think like who is up who is down. It's about our country."

This Bostonist seconds Amy Derjue's opinion on the crying. Derjue advises Clinton to "be the snarky bitch" because now pundits will jump down her throat for being "emotional." Clinton's appeal is that she's mean and tough. She's easily got the "Thatchers," as Stephen Colbert might put it, to hold public office. She's got more "Thatchers" than the rest of the other candidates' balls combined.

And now she cries. The tears don't come at a good time because they look like a play for sympathy in the polls. Mitt Romney cried, and it didn't suit him, either. When a person who has been through the fire like that--and any politician running for a position this high has been through the fire--the time for crying is over. Plenty of awful things have been said, and those people are tempered steel. Any amount of crying will come off as false. If a candidate is going to cry, he or she should do it in a hidden "crying room" protected by armed guards. But crying? No way. Not the time for it.

Then again, if the crying is a sign that Hillary Clinton will deliver a Dean-esque Barbaric Yawp after the primary results are delivered, this Bostonist is all for it!

The opinions in this post belong solely to this Bostonist. Photo of Hillary Clinton speaking at Nashua North High taken by Chris Klein from photos tagged "Bostonist" on Flickr.