why did she win?

Comparing the results to the polls, Matthew Yglesias says there was a surge for Hillary, and he’s got full-color art to support his assertion:

People who were undecided as of the last round of polling seem to have gone overwhelmingly in her direction.

Think Progress quotes Bill Kristol:

10:42 PM: Bill Kristol: “It’s the tears. She pretended to cry. The women felt sorry for her. And she won.”

Could be! Only I don’t think she pretended. She was feeling (uncharacteristically) sorry for herself. It may have worked (at least in this particular race, a squeaker), simply because it showed—finally!–that she is human.

This is also possible evidence of Feiler Faster at work. Obama was surging in the polls, no question. Then Hillary’s “It’s not easy” *** Diner Moment erupted and went into heavy rotation on cable last night and continued this morning—probably the last thing that people saw on their morning shows before they walked out the door for the day. And the voting booth was one of their stops before they came back home for the night.

Makes a good story, anyhow.

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*** I’ve never heard a woman of Hillary’s age (and our cohort) say, “Things are hard.”

When middle-aged women—the generation in between (parents and children)—talk among themselves about life, they say, just as Hillary said: “It’s not easy.”