Learning To Value Sensitivity

When Edmund Muskie nearly burst into tears on the campaign trail in 1972, Bob Dole didn’t show much sympathy for him. But 24 years later, Dole owes his old foe a debt of gratitude. Without Muskie’s groundbreaking emotional eruption, Dole may not have felt free to let down his own guard on the stump last month.

Muskie, who died March 26, was a highly respected senator from Maine, an early environmentalist and one of liberalism’s great promoters. Still, he’ll always be best known for crying out loud.

In late February 1972, as the oddson favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Muskie climbed onto a flatbed truck in snowy New Hampshire to attack William Loeb, the conservative publisher of the Manchester Union Leader. In that day’s paper, Loeb had printed sordid rumors about the personal habits of Muskie’s wife.

“This man doesn’t walk, he crawls,” Muskie told reporters that day, his eyes filling with tears. Then, struggling to regain his composure, he said loudly, “He’s talking about my wife.”

The incident shook up the presidential race. Time magazine called it a “moment of weakness.” Washington Sen. Henry Jackson, Muskie’s Democratic rival, said: “If he’s like that with Loeb, what would he do with Brezhnev?”

And Bob Dole, then the 48-year-old chairman of the Republican National Committee, chided Muskie sarcastically: “I don’t blame Muskie for crying. If I had to run against Richard Nixon, I’d do a lot of crying too.”

In light of subsequent revelations about Nixon’s campaign tactics, Dole’s last line is ironic. But Muskie didn’t get a chance to run against Nixon. After his diatribe against Loeb, his support dropped in New Hampshire. Six weeks later, he was out of the race.

When journalist James Michener later tried to understand why the crying incident was pivotal, he found that one question kept emerging among those who had abandoned Muskie’s campaign: Would you want a president who weeps to have his finger on the nuclear button?

As Michener noted: “I realized that voters feared that a man of sensitivity might NOT push the button; they did not fear that he would.”

Muskie’s departure made Bob Dole a happy man. With the most politically dangerous Democrat out of the race, super-liberal George McGovern captured the nomination. The result was a landslide re-election win for Nixon.

Inspired by the Muskie incident, the nation began to question its perception of teary male politicians. Eventually, we cut them some slack, and even came to recognize the value of sensitivity in men of power. Pundits who criticized Muskie for crying barely chirped when presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton showed similar vulnerability in their presidencies.

And now even Dole weeps publicly.

Last month - on the very day Muskie died - Dole stood behind a podium at Russell High School in his Kansas hometown, his eyes welling with tears, his chin shaking, as he thanked those who had nursed him back to health after he returned, wounded, from World War II.

“I will never forget your kindness or your care. I will never forget your sacrifice and your prayers,” he told 3,000 supporters. “Some debts can never be repaid. But I have come to Russell to acknowledge mine.”

Perhaps one day, when politics allows it, Dole will also acknowledge the debt he owes to Edmund Muskie.

Male call: When has being openly emotional helped you in your own professional life? Send responses to VoiceMale, P.O. Box 8071, Lexington, Ky. 40533-8071, or to e-mail address nchetaol.com.

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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Neil Chethik Universal Press Syndicate