A mood for all seasons

Moods can be very mysterious things. What affects people’s moods can vary widely and even the word “mood” is sort of funny to contemplate. MOOD. Odd word. It’s like the next thing a cow would mutter, after it utters “moo.” Moooood! All of us can be moody, but no one comes close to mood changes (albeit intentional, perhaps) like our very own Hillary Clinton.

When at first you don’t succeed, try another mood. That’s been the pseudo-strategy of the Clinton campaign for weeks now (depending on the revolving door of who’s calling the shots at any one time). Barely a week ago in the debates, she was both accusatory and most gracious — both within a few minutes of each other.

Less than 48 hours later, Hillary found herself scolding her opponent and throwing around that most befuddling of all phrases, “shame on you!” — which brought back memories (at least for some of us) of our days in grade school when Mrs. Emerson simply couldn’t control the class and all she could do was throw her chubby little hands in the air and conveniently chastise all of us at once. There is, after all, no greater dishonor than to be shamed by one’s elders or so the Clinton campaign had hoped.

When shame didn’t seem to work, Hillary next tried sarcasm, referring to “clouds that will part” and “celestial heavens” and describing almost perfectly the scene in “The Ten Commandments” right before Charlton Heston parts the Red Sea. (Let’s be grateful that Cecil B. DeMille isn’t still around to witness this.) Yet having tried graciousness, anger, scolding, pettiness and sarcasm all within a single week, Hillary badly needed another mood to try out in this week’s debate. While she appeared to have employed a not-so-subtle subtle mixture of several previous moods, what she should have tried was “profound sadness.” It could work.

Instead of simply railing against Obama following months of frustration over perceived unfair media coverage, crowds (where apparently size does matter), fundraising problems, Bill, ineffective campaign strategies and the occasional bad hair day that afflicts us all, Hillary’s most effective corrective course of action right now could just be sadness — perhaps among the most underrated of all the major moods.

Let’s face it, sadness can be contagious. If she were to simply sigh heavily before making a major pronouncement, as if to convey the unspoken message of “why do I even try to please everyone?”, she may find a lot of sympathetic voters out there who are wondering the same thing. Along with appearing to be sad, if she were able to sound sad, as well, it could serve as a subtle counterattack on all those naïve and foolish voters out there who think that “hope” is not a pathetic four-letter word that has no place in American culture. What is hope anyway? When we hope for something, we obviously don’t like the ways things are now and what does that say about us? As Cindy McCain said recently in response to some comments from Michelle Obama, “I’m proud of this country every single day.” Every single day? Apparently Cindy hasn’t been reading the newspaper in the last few years.

So if “hope” is nothing less than wishful thinking on a mass scale, sadness is the only answer. Sadness, after all, would be a real-world response to our life and times in 2008. In Hillary’s real world — not Obama’s make-believe world of hope and change. (“Change”? Don’t get me started!)

No, if I were Hillary Clinton, I’d stick with the sad approach. Sad is safe, it’s dignified and it’s certainly different. And sooner or later, having tried all the other moods of human nature, it will also be the most appropriate mood for her campaign.

John Merli has been a Prince William County resident since 1984. He has worked in the media for more than 30 years. E-mail him at {encode="j.merli@comcast.net" title="j.merli@comcast.net.