The Sympathy Vote?

I was seriously wrong in my analysis of Hillary Clinton in regards to the January 5th debate. I thought latent sexism would work against her when she responded angrily to Edwards calling her the (paraphrasing) "candidate of the status quo" and then tearing up when asked "how do you do it?". (My impression is that this moment was totally calculated, I can't really back it up that's just what instinct tells me.) I thought these events would combine to be the death blow to her campaign. What I've seen since seems to be the opposite. I've read about 600 articles talking about how she was ganged-up on and bashing Edwards and her critics as "bullies", and talking about how the crying thing helped reveal that she's a real person with feelings (more on that later). I'm seriously expecting to see a youtube video of a ridiculously effeminate crying teen-ager screaming "LEAVE HILLARY ALONE". The thing I failed to take into account is the power of perceived victimhood in our society. I'll give an example. A few months ago I read an article that mentioned how when the novel The Grapes of Wrath was released a lot of criticism came from poor migrant farmers who didn't like being portrayed as helpless victims of circumstance. Contrast that with today. We've gone from a time when actual helpless victims didn't want to be portrayed as helpless victims to a society where even the rich and powerful want to be portrayed as victims in order to gain my sympathy. Let's save our sympathy for people who deserve it: people who are crying for legitimate reasons like hurricane Katrina or loss of loved ones in the war, not people who come out and cry over their political fortunes.
I'm not even necessarily trying to bash Hillary here. If you feel like crying, go ahead I don't feel it should be an issue one way or another. My problem is this: sympathy is no reason to vote for ANYONE. Let's pretend for a minute that the other candidates are bullies who are ganging up on her because of her gender (which I don't believe for an instant any more than I believe attacks on Romney or Obama are based on religion or race, respectively). Do you really think a President of the United States will never have to deal with bullies? Do you think Kim Jong Il or Vladimir (I call him Vladimir) will be moved by sympathy? Another claim that drives me insane is "this emotional moment shows that she really has feelings". If you didn't know she was a real person with feelings you are, to put it nicely, a MORON! They're all real people with feelings (even Rudy, believe it or not). And this seems to be a winning strategy. So now we get to watch her go from being a candidate who talks about the issues and why she has the strongest skills and experience to be an effective president to a campaign that will increasingly feature her trying to be warm and "grandmotherly". And it could work. What does that say about the way we pick a leader? At the same time Bill is stepping up his role as the attack dog, coming out and criticizing Obama (and the criticisms are by and large legitimate). This bothers me because it is beneath the dignity of a former U.S. president. I don't remember Bush 41 demeaning himself in this matter when his son was running. (it could have happened but I don't remember seeing it). I guess I shouldn't be surprised in this development though because dignity has never been a hallmark of the Clinton dynasty.