It was the defining moment of the New Hampshire race when Hillary Clinton, the icy cool queen of the Democratic Party, welled up with emotion and squeezed out those tears that would swing her the election. No matter that the woman whose question prompted the unprecedented outpouring of emotion ended up voting for Barack Obama, Ms Clinton recognised that the electorate likes to see if its politicians bleed and it won her the day. Whether she actually meant it or indeed shed any real tears at all, is eclipsed by the bigger question of how human we want our politicians to be. Hillary realised that the most efficient way to prove her humanity and therefore, likeability, was to cry. It’s a well trodden path. Margaret Thatcher was an abhorrence to a generation and yet the sight of her trembling lip and teary eye as she left 10 Downing Street for the last time rehumanised her for a few, for a moment. the genius of Tony Blair’s spin machine that coined the phrase, ‘The People’s Princess’, an...
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