Here (emphasis added).
There's still a long campaign ahead, and despite her win Tuesday night, she should remember Iowa. Being the underdog suits her. Clinton's resurgence in the last two days had a lot to do with her sudden accessibility, spontaneity and, yes, even vulnerability. Taking questions from audiences and reporters. Admitting in the Saturday debate that being considered not likable "hurts my feelings." And yes, even the tears.
But I'm also wary of overemphasizing the tea-and-sympathy vote in Clinton's win. NBC exit polls also found that Democratic voters said she was the candidate most ready to be commander in chief. But while Tim Russert mentioned that on "NBC Nightly News" before the polls closed, nobody said a word about it on MSNBC as word of Clinton's victory came in; it was all about a backlash by women saving Hillary. "The women of New Hampshire gave this election to Hillary Clinton," Russert said after she was declared the winner, while Chuck Todd declared there could be a "gender war" in the Democratic Party. (Chris Matthews, meanwhile, looked more dismayed than Michelle Obama when the results first came in.)
There will be no gender war in the Democratic Party. But I also have to take in that every place I went in Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton got her biggest hand when she or supporters emphasized the historic nature of her run as the first credible female presidential candidate. And every place I went since her Iowa loss, I've talked to women -- even many who didn't support Clinton -- who were dismayed that this "first" Clinton seemed on the verge of achieving was being swept aside as unimportant, that somehow only Obama symbolized change. . . .
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