Hillary Clinton’s Faith, Family and Values team sent out this clip of the senator’s response to the final question of last night’s debate, Describe a moment in life when you were tested most.Toward the end of her response, Clinton characterizes her political career as more or less a religious calling:
I’d resolved at a very young age that I’d been blessed and that I was called by my faith and by my upbringing to do what I could to give others the same opportunities and blessings that I took for granted. That’s what gets me up in the morning, that’s what motivates me in this campaign.
On CNN last night, David Gergen called her response her most humanizing moment since New Hampshire. Te Clinton campaign itself emailed a “breaking news” alert about it, saying “Senator Clinton talked tonight from her heart.”If Clinton is able to pull off victory in Texas or Ohio next week, it will probably require more such “from the heart” moments. But her predicament is that such moments work because they seem to reveal the real, human, vulnerable side of an overly scripted candidate. How can she keep those moments coming without appearing like she’s manufacturing them as part of an 11th-hour rescue mission?9