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MANCHESTER, N.H. — For a quavering moment, she almost lost it.
Hillary Clinton, visibly weary, her voice trembling, seemed to be on the verge of tears yesterday as she acknowledged the toll that her campaign for the presidency has taken.
"I have [had] so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want us to fall backwards," she responded yesterday, quietly, when asked at a round table of undecided voters what kept her going. "This is very personal for me," she went on, voice trembling. "It's not just political. It's not just public. I see what's happening. And we have to reverse it."
Her eyes glistened with tears as she spoke. "Some of us put ourselves out there and do this, against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country," she said.
"But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one, and some of us haven't really thought that through enough."
And with that, the embattled former front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination was back on message track as she prepared for the increasing likelihood of defeat today in New Hampshire.
A raft of polls shows Illinois Senator Barack Obama surging ahead in the Democratic race to win the New Hampshire primary. (One local poll, however, has the two of them essentially tied.) The RealClearPolitics.com compendium has Mr. Obama ahead by almost eight points.
Faced with the relentless demands of her campaign schedule, and the relentless bad news from pollsters and press, the strain of fighting against the tide is starting to show.
That tide is powered by the young. Independent voters in their 20s and 30s appear to be swinging en masse to Mr. Obama, prompting speculation that generations X and Y are seizing on the Obama candidacy to break the electoral hegemony of the baby boomers.
There is credible evidence this is true. In Iowa last week, where Mr. Obama convincingly defeated Ms. Clinton in the first state contest, three times the usual number of voters under 30 attended the caucuses, equalling the number of voters over 65. While the older voters largely supported Ms. Clinton, the young voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama.
Political analysts usually discount the influence of younger voters because they tend not to show up on election day.
But that did not happen in Iowa and does not appear to be happening here. Mr. Obama has been drawing crowds in the thousands, many of whom cannot get into the jam-packed rallies and many of whom are young.
Conversely, the 250 people or so (another 150 were turned away, according to organizers) who attended Ms. Clinton's afternoon town hall meeting in Dover were, in the main, middle aged or older.
Katherine Morgan was there, to hear Ms. Clinton speak and to lend her support. "I think she has the track record that would allow her to move right into the presidency," the retired English teacher explained. "I think that what she's saying is true."
But "I don't feel that confident that Hillary is going to come out ahead." Why not? "I have two children of my own who are in their 30s. They think a vote for Hillary Clinton is like a vote for Mom. And they just can't bring themselves to do that."
Throughout her hour-long talk and question-and-answer session, Ms. Clinton - still looking weary, but fully composed - circled back to her principal message: that only she has the experience to realize the agenda for change that voters seek.
"I believe we must pick a president who will deliver on our hopes and our dreams," she told the crowd. "I have what I believe to be the advantage of years of experience making positive change."
And in what might be a preview of attacks to come, she derided Mr. Obama's vow to wage war on the special interests, accusing him of having a lobbyist for pharmaceutical companies as campaign co-chair in New Hampshire. (He is a state, not a federal lobbyist, the Obama campaign responded.) And as for Mr. Obama's opposition to the war on Iraq, "when you give a speech and say you will not vote to fund the war in Iraq, and then you vote for $300-billion of funding, that is not change," Ms. Clinton said, referring to Mr. Obama's subsequent votes to continue funding the war.
All this is probably too little, too late, for New Hampshire.
But Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency is not finished if she loses today. Unlike the Edmund Muskie incident - the Maine senator's 1972 bid for the Democratic nomination was torpedoed in New Hampshire when he appeared to cry during an emotional speech - yesterday's vulnerable moment might soften an image that comes across to many as cold and controlling.
No one can predict what will happen over the next three weeks, before more than 20 states vote on Feb. 5.
But for the Clinton camp, the last week has been devastating. And it's starting to show.
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ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
The question: Marianne Pernold-Young, 64, sympathetically asked the former first lady at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, N.H, yesterday: "How do you do it? How do you keep up?"
Ms. Clinton's answer: "It's not easy, it's not easy and I couldn't do it if I just didn't passionately believe that it is the right thing to do. This is very personal for me. It's not just political, not just public. I see what's happening and we have to reverse it. Some people think elections are like a game, whose up, whose down. It's about our country; it's about our kids' futures. Some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. Some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us are ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we'll do on day one and some of us haven't thought that through enough."
