Here’s how one female New Hampshire voter explained her decision to vote for Hillary over Obama to a New York Times reporter: “Women finally saw a woman — perhaps a tough woman, but a woman with a gentle heart,” said Elaine Marquis, a receptionist from Manchester, New Hampshire who had been deciding between Obama and Hillary.

Hmm. So Hillary’s finally a woman because she cried publicly?

Then again, Obama mentioned slavery and abolitionists during his stirring, almost evangelical “Yes, we can!” concession sermon that recalled the oratorical magic of Martin Luther King.

But isn’t he the (black) candidate that transcends race in color-blind America?

In the current US elections, it seems that a personal connection with voters is essential — voters are tired of phony politicians who say what you want to hear and then do nothing more than fundraise and campaign to stay in office while the country rots around him (yes, Dubya, I’m talking about you). So the candidates have got to be “real”, which essentially means that they have to be skillful at strategically exploiting their personal histories without appearing phony.

Hillary’s message during her now famous tearful plea was “Don’t you see me crying? This election is personal to me. It’s not just politics.”

For his part, John Edwards mentioned that he grew up a poor, white boy whose parents weren’t particularly educated and whose father worked in a mill at least 50 times (not really, but it seemed like it) during the recent New Hampshire debate. That Edwards is now worth about $30 million is personal information that doesn’t need to be shared.

Obama’s gift is that he transmits a sincere desire for change. He doesn’t need to let people know it’s personal. They can feel it, and they can see it (he’s black!).

So in these elections each leading Democratic candidate claims to be an agent of change, because the need for change is something that is intensely personal for him or her, either because of DNA or because of personal family history.

And after months (decades?) of decisively not playing the gender card, stoic Hillary had no choice but to counter Obama’s unspoken genetic claim to being the definitive agent of change with a visual reminder of her own — crying like a little girl (not quite, but you get the point). It apparently reminded a lot of female voters: “Hey, she really is one of us, and if she wins, that’s going to be a pretty big change for all women — the first female President. We have to vote for her.” And men who thought she was a bitch before suddenly realized that maybe the Iron Lady is just a vulnerable woman like their wives, mothers and daughters.

(By way of digression, I can’t help but remember the movie “The Queen” for which Helen Mirren won an Oscar last year. The movie shows how a stoic Queen Elizabeth II alienated herself from the British public — and put the entire British monarchy at jeopardy — when she refused to show emotion when Princess Diana died. Only after showing a slight bit of human emotion — if I remember correctly, her speech remind the British public that “as a mother and a grandmother”, she felt a sense of loss at Diana’s death — did the British public rush back to embrace their Queen. Maybe this suggests that traditional prototypes of powerful women as cold, stoic eunuchs are outdated and need to be updated more in the reality-show mold of princess Diana or at least of Oprah Winfrey, who is never afraid to cry with her public or discuss openly painful elements of her past.)

So maybe politics is more than anything a visual medium - the ultimate reality TV — even more dramatic than Hollywood.

Maybe traditional notions of powerful women are now being remodeled by younger women who grew up seeing other women in power.

Maybe Hillary could only lay a legitimate claim to being a change agent when she reminded people — in a stirring visual display of “feminine” vulnerability — that she is a truly modern woman (tough but vulnerable at the same time), and that as a woman with a very good shot at becoming the first female President, electing her would be a momentous change in and of itself.

Maybe Obama has been benefiting from his unique ability to transcend and exploit his race simultaneously. Everyone knows that he’s black, but enough white people don’t seem to care to give him a decent shot at being the first black president. That being said, would he be as interesting a candidate if he weren’t black? Would his story be as compelling for the media or for voters if he weren’t so “modern”?

It’d be the ultimate irony if strategic use of the race or gender card in a moment when “change” is the buzz word du jour is ultimately what causes America to elect its first black or female President. Maybe we should all buy George Bush a drink, because if his leadership didn’t suck so badly and bring the country to the point of another recession, the American people wouldn’t feel such a dramatic need for “change”.