She kindled Hillary’s emotions, voted for Obama

WASHINGTON: Irony of ironies! The woman whose friendly question provided Hillary Clinton her emotional moment and an electoral windfall in New Hampshire ended up casting her own vote for Barack Obama. The 64-year-old Marianne Pernold Young said she admired Clinton, but revealed that it was Obama who brought tears to her own eyes with his evocative oratory of “hope and change”. That prompted her to vote for the young Senator from Illinois. Ever since that widely-telecast clip of a “teary-eyed” Clinton which, pundits believe, changed the New Hampshire primary’s dynamics. No, the question was “not any set-up” by the Hillary campaign, Young has been telling reporters on the prowl. Both her question and Clinton’s emotional response with tears welling up in her eyes were genuine and spontaneous, she said. The episode is reckoned to have revealed the “human side” of the former First Lady, who has often been described by critics as “stiff” and “robotic”. Young admitted she was moved by Clinton’s emotional moment, but only for a short while. “We saw 10 seconds of Hillary, the caring woman…But then when she turned away from me, I noticed that she stiffened up and took on that political posture again. And the woman that I noticed for 10 seconds was gone,” Young commented. In the end, Young, who had been an undecided voter, concluded she should vote for Obama. While the media is still debating the issue, Clinton herself believes her turning point in New Hampshire was the candidates’ debate three days before the vote. Clinton told NBC that things started changing for her after that debate last Saturday. “It was the first time that the leading candidates actually were asked some very pointed questions about what we stand for, what we’ve done to help other people, what our accomplishments are and what we want to do for the future,” she said. News Source : Samachar