Which Hillary?

In desperation now, the Campaign That Couldn't is giving us a montage of Hillary Clintons--defiant, angry, scolding, sarcastic--in Ohio and Texas, but how will she blend those stump personas into a coherent candidate for the side-by-side setting of tonight's crucial debate?

In New Hampshire, the sensitive Hillary won over voters in the final days and, at the end of last week's sitdown, emerged again to great effect, but her advisors seem convinced that only an aggressive Hillary can overcome doubts about a woman as Commander-in-Chief.

During the 1960 campaign, John F. Kennedy said he felt sorry for Richard Nixon. "It must be hard," JFK said, "to get up every morning and have to decide who you're going to be that day."

Compared to Nixon, Hillary Clinton is a person of substance, but the Barack Obama surge has forced her into parading multiple personalities, adding confusion to the negatives she has to overcome from the Clinton years.

Claiming superior experience didn't work. Unleashing Bill Clinton didn't work. Mockery and anger don't seem to be working. Being soft and sensitive is too risky.

What's left?

Did Romney Help Hillary Clinton?

After all the complaints about Iowa's caucus system, was New Hampshire's odd crossover voting responsible for the most significant primary result so far--Hillary Clinton's surprise victory over Barack Obama?

The explanation starts with Mitt Romney's unpopularity there. New Hampshire newspapers anti-endorsed him, the Union-Leader asserting "his words are memorized, not heartfelt" and the Concord Monitor calling him a candidate built from a kit, "a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped."

With all that animosity in the air along with a barrage of Romney commercials in a close contest with McCain and the polls showing Obama ahead by double digits, how many Independents decided it was more important to vote against Romney rather than for Obama?

As the only Massachusetts governor ever to lose a primary in his neighboring state, Mitt may have in passing done Hillary Clinton a huge favor. Politics makes strange...