PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton exhaustively answered hours of questions from New Hampshire voters yesterday, displaying a cool mastery of topics from health care to global warming as she made a final pitch for her candidacy.
But one query broke through her defenses. For a moment, the woman teetering on the cusp of a second consecutive defeat in the race for the Democratic nomination revealed an emotional side rarely seen in public.
"My question is very personal," said Marianne Pernold, 64, a freelance photographer attending a Clinton breakfast for undecided voters at a coffee shop in Portsmouth. "How do you do it? How do you keep upbeat?"
"It's not easy," the New York senator replied, her voice cracking and her eyes welling with tears. "You know, I've had so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backward."
"Some of us are right, and some of us are wrong," she said, a clear reference to her surging rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. "Some of us are ready, and some of us are not. ... So, as tired as I am - and I am - I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation."
On the day before a critical vote that could determine her future, Clinton used a variety of strategies - some soft and others hard - in an attempt to repel the challenge posed by Obama.
Recent polls give Obama a double-digit advantage here. If Democrats in New Hampshire cast their ballots decisively for the Illinois senator, it could be a fatal blow for the Clinton candidacy.
Clinton displayed her policy acumen yesterday, discussing substantive issues with voters and winning some converts.
"I was on the fence. Last night, I liked Obama," said Jane Harrington, 52, who sat next to Clinton throughout the hourlong breakfast session. But Clinton swayed her.
"I think I'm going to put a Hillary bumper sticker on my car."
Clinton continued her criticisms of Obama's voting and legislative record, saying it shows he can't produce the change he promises. And the exhaustion of weeks of nonstop campaign produced an unplanned message: that of a bone-tired candidate who might be worn down from sinking poll numbers and the implosion of her seeming inevitability.
Asked yesterday whether her campaign was in panic mode, Clinton said, "I'm not."
"You know, I have been through a lot of campaigns, so maybe that's why I just see this from the longer-term perspective," she said on CBS. "You know, you go up and you go down."
