If I shed tears, most people don't care, nor would I expect them to care. (I have wasted a lot of time crying over losses, and I can assure everyone that crying has never brought anyone or anything back to life.)

Of course, I'm not crying in New Hampshire.

When Ed Muskie cried in New Hampshire (at least, the press thought he did), his presidential campaign collapsed.

Have times changed? Hillary Clinton reportedly fought back tears:

Exhausted and facing the prospect of losing the second test of her primary campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton fought back tears as her voice broke at the close of a sedate event in a Portsmouth coffee shop.

She expressed the sheer difficulty of heading out to the trail each day -- "It's not easy," she said -- and suggested she faced "pretty difficult odds."

And with audible frustration and disbelief, she drew the contrast between her experience and Sen. Barack Obama's that suggests that her campaign's current message -- the question of who is ready -- matches her profound sense that she alone is ready for the job.

"Some of us know what we are going to do on day one, and some of us haven't thought that through enough," she said.

The question was innocuous:

"As a woman, I know it's hard to get out of the house and get ready," said Marianne Pernold, a local freelance photographer. "Who does your hair?"

Clinton began by talking about her hair -- she has some help -- but moved to talk more generally about the campaign.

"It's not easy, it's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I just didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said.

"I have so many opportunities for this country. I don't want to see us all fall back," she said, her voice breaking in the last phrase.

"This is very personal for me," she said to supportive applause from the small gathering, at which she'd been discussing policy around a table for an hour. "It's not just political, it's not just public -- I see what's happening. We have to reverse it."

Oddly enough, I find myself feeling a bit sorry for her. To have strived for the brass ring all those years, just to have it snatched away when it seemed to finally be in her grasp must be wrenching.

I don't like to see anyone in pain, either physical or emotional. But this is politics, and what matters in politics are appearances. The more real the appearance, the more likely it is to be believed. Hillary Clinton, regardless of what anyone thinks of her, is perceived as a cold and calculating political animal, not given over to feelings, much less spontaneous outbursts of crying.

That she was reported crying in New Hampshire is highly significant as a political development. That a political enemy like Stephen Bainbridge was moved by her tears is also significant.

In politics, it does not matter whether the tears are real, but whether people are moved by them. Note that in Ed Muskie's case, he might not have actually cried; the tears could have been melting snowflakes. But what mattered was the appearance of crying. The appearance of tears finished him off, because in those days, real men did not cry. As the BBC put it,

Democrat Senator Ed Muskie was immensely frustrated by a number of nasty remarks published about his wife, and, speaking outside the office of the offending newspaper in 1972, allegedly shed a few tears. Whether he did or not is ultimately irrelevant. The press decided he had - and the impression that stuck was of a weak man unfit for office.

Just because real men could not cry in 1972, does that mean real women -- even presidential women -- can't cry in 2008?

Whether the tears are real or not, they represent feelings. The idea of heartless Hillary having feelings is a new one.

It might be just what the doctor ordered.

I'll have to work on how I feel about that.

MORE: Newsweek has the video here, accompanying a piece titled "A Muskie moment, or a helpful glimpse of 'the real Hillary'?"

I watched it, and frankly, I didn't see tears.

AND MORE: According to this report, the tears were not only there, they were effective:

The response to her emotion was very positive.

"She definitely teared up. I believe her," said Elizabeth Holcomb, from Exeter, who sat close to Clinton. "I believe that what she says comes from her heart."

MORE: What about what people want to believe?

AND MORE: Wow! I missed this, but Mickey Kaus points out that The Anchoress predicted that Hillary would cry.

What I dread most in this political season is the "genuine" moment - and it is coming, soon, sometime between today and tomorrow, or tomorrow and New Hampshire - when Mrs. Clinton, in her ongoing effort to turn herself into whatever the polls says she must be, cries in public. It's going to be genuinely ghastly.