Is it possible to write an entire news story about a former New York senator’s decision to order a burrito bowl?
For reporters at the New York Times, Mashable, Business Insider, the Jerusalem Post, the Washington Post, the New York Post, Time, Breitbart, BuzzFeed, the New York Daily News, the Tampa Bay Times, the Daily Mail, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, USA Today and New York magazine, the answer is “yes.”
Though reporters gripe about being “fatigued” by the idea of covering another Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, they are subjecting even the most banal of the former first lady’s activities to a level of attention and study worthy of a pagan deity.
For some in the press, Clinton’s stop Monday at a Chipotle restaurant in Ohio merited heavy newsroom coverage and chatter, with pundits and reporters alike asking what it could mean for the newly announced Democratic presidential candidate’s chances in 2016.
The good news for Clinton: Reporters broadly agree that the burrito run will give gas to her campaign.
“Clinton “showed how unassuming she … could be,” Times journalist Maggie Haberman reported.
Haberman called and requested copies of the restaurant’s surveillance footage after being “tipped off” by an anonymous source that Clinton had made a pit stop to eat a bowl of food.
“Hillary Clinton passed her first real test of the primary season: she ordered wisely at Chipotle,” read a Times tweet linking to an article that awarded the former first lady’s burrito bowl order an “above average” rating.
The Washington Post was careful in its own write-up of the Chipotle story to note that the former New York senator also “ate some healthy snacks … including cottage cheese and almonds.”
Clinton and her aides are traveling from New York to Iowa in a van, dubbed “Scooby” for the 1960s “Scooby Doo” cartoon series, with the goal of “connecting” with heartland voters. Clinton did the exact same thing — cartoon references and all — in 2000 when she ran in New York for the U.S. Senate.
The former secretary of state’s choice of the medium-fast-food restaurant came in for heavy exegesis — but not all the coverage was positive. Although the supposed purpose of her trip is to “connect” with voters, Clinton apparently made no effort to speak with Ohio locals during her Chipotle run. It also appears that the former first lady, in the manner of a Renaissance monarch traveling incognito among the populace, went totally unrecognized during her stop.
More seriously, the Washington Examiner‘s Paul Bedard has noted that the CEO of the popular chain makes an annual salary that would likely shock the economic leftists Clinton is reportedly hoping to cultivate. Clinton’s choice of an almond snack also flirts with bad press, as the water-intensive almond crop has been rendered politically incorrect due to California’s drought.
Nevertheless, this was a good moment for Hillary Clinton, according to Bloomberg News’ Mark Halperin.
“Her problem is not to prove to people that she’s ready for president,” Halperin said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Halperin pushed back this weekend on complaints that the press is giving Clinton the kid gloves treatment, saying on Twitter, “There’s literally nothing on Earth funnier now than conservatives on Twitter who think [Hillary Clinton] is enjoying a honeymoon [with] the media.”
Halperin added Tuesday during “Morning Joe” that burritos are “fun.”
“The two words she needs are fun and new. And part of why yesterday was so successful is, she looks like she’s having fun and she’s doing, for her, new stuff. We’ve never seen her get a burrito before,” he said.
