http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080328/pl_nm/usa_politics_clinton_dcBe strong or show some emotion? Stick to policy or share your private life?
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton faces this challenge as she tries to become the first woman in the highest office in the land: how to appear human without appearing weak.
Clinton, a New York senator who has struggled to overcome public perceptions that she is aloof, peppered her speeches this week with references to her childhood and personal life in a twin effort to give substance to her policy goals while opening a window to her personal life.
Analysts say women running for office face a challenge their male counterparts do not in walking a line between exhibiting strength and showing their feelings.
The former first lady has largely favored strength, emphasizing her resume of experience and readiness to serve as commander-in-chief as she campaigns for the Democratic nomination to contest November's presidential election.
Still, a rare teary-eyed moment shortly before the New Hampshire nominating contest was widely credited with turning the result in her favor, handing her a much-needed victory over rival Barack Obama and rejuvenating her candidacy after a loss in the first nominating contest in Iowa that some predicted would be fatal to her presidential hopes.
Since then, that softer side has been on display less often during the see-saw battle with Obama, an Illinois senator seeking to become the first black U.S. president, while her experience argument has produced some holes.
Clinton was forced to back away from her claim that she came under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996 while she was first lady after a video contradicted her version.
"So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I'm human which, you know, for some people, is a revelation," she told reporters on Tuesday.
Is it a revelation? Maybe not. But even supporters say they would like to see more of the 60-year-old candidate's human side.
"She seems standoffish to ... the public, like when she's on television," said Stacey Barron-Salvio, 39, a Clinton supporter and mother of six who was attending a rally in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
"I've never heard her really talk about her personal stories that much. I think if she showed some of those personal sides -- even if there are some flaws -- it makes her look more human and it makes her appeal to more people."
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I post this not as a supporter of Hillary Clinton's policies, but as a woman. A woman who has experienced discrimination in a prior workplace because of my gender and also as a woman who believes that in today's political atmosphere while more women have entered politics, the same stereotypes exist in politics that exist in the corporate world.
I was not pleased with Sen. Clinton's exaggeration of her trip to Bosnia as First Lady. She simply could have stated that she was in Bosnia and happy to have been kept safe there even though she was in danger of sniper fire, which actually would not be considered a lie under the circumstances. I have been trying to think beyond the soundbites then as to why she would say what she did. Why she would blatantly color the experience. And while some simply go along with the media soundbites and think it is because she is a cold calculating 'bitch' ( which may or may not be true) I think it goes deeper than that. I think it goes to the point that as a woman in politics especially one running for the presidency, you have to appear brave, strong, and someone with "balls" able to lead better than a man in order to be taken seriously.
From accounts I have read of her young life she was a woman who cared about many of the things we all care about. Did politics then harden her? I think to a great extent it did. I think Washington DC can do that to the softest kindest heart if you are exposed to its poison long enough. Even Al Gore was recently quoted as saying, " Politics does bad things to good people."
I am not trying to excuse her embellishments or the way her campaign has been run (which I think is something her 'advisors' need to be fired for) but I am honestly disappointed and a bit sad at the developments and the way it appears she has allowed herself to be swept into the void of politics that turns your real person off.
When I was a young girl I actually thought of what it would be like to have a woman president. Unfortunately, in the system we have I don't think that is going to happen this time out, and if it does people will not be able to acknowledge the historical significance of it because they will be too involved in hating regardless of how she may now wish to appear. The damage has already been done.
I just hope that for young women coming up seeing this has not turned them off to wanting to be involved in changiing this world for the better through politics and social activism. I also really hope that Sen. Clinton can see just what politics has done to her and step back before it consumes her. She had a chance to change the way the man's game in Washington DC is played. I hope she sees it before it is too late. As for women in general in politics or the corporate world: we still have much work to do to take our place in both areas and personally, I don't think showing a bit of humanity or "emotion" in the process is something to be ashamed of.