Hillary got a Chipotle burrito bowl for lunch yesterday. I know this because this vital information made the goddamn New York Times.
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign is all about “everyday Americans,” she made clear in announcing it on Sunday.
On Monday, she showed how unassuming she herself could be.
Driving to Iowa for her first campaign swing, Mrs. Clinton’s van — with two aides and Secret Service agents aboard — pulled into a Chipotle restaurant for lunch in Maumee, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo.
And no one recognized her.
Maybe it was the dark sunglasses. Or maybe she had a certain je ne sais — qui?
But nobody took notice of the celebrity in front of the counter. Fellow patrons paid her no more attention than a driver would get from a toll taker.
Nor did the restaurant’s staff notice Mrs. Clinton, until this reporter, tipped off that she had dined there, telephoned.
Nineteen more months of this.
You know the part in Roald Dahl’s Matilda where the young heroine is so frustrated by the abject stupidity of the world around her that she actually manifests telekinetic powers as a result?
I figure 2016 campaign reporting means that I’ll be up to full-blown pyrokinesis by January, maybe some Green Lantern stuff by next Easter. I’m hoping for all-out Time Lord goodness by July 2016. That’ll be fun.
Jeffro
Extra guac, or no?
Baud
Anyone remember the controversy over Obama liking orange juice?
The more things change…
Punchy
I’m confused. Where does it say it was a bowl? Does that mean she’s chosing the gluten-free option, thus demonstrating that she’s suffering from Celiac’s Disease? Did she eschew the hot sauce, thus demonstrating she’s got a bad ticker and severe heartburn? How many times did she refill her pop? Too many and she may develop diabetes, or it demonstrates she’s dehydrated due to kidney issues.
hidflect
The media hates a one horse race. I’ve got a feeling they’re going to savage her like a foaming dog.
>CHING!<
'scuse me… my popcorn is ready.
Cervantes
You have to pay attention to bylines. In this case it was Maggie Haberman, formerly of Politico. Need I say more?
I will: Haberman is deranged.
russell
She is completely out of touch. Everybody knows that Chipotle is not “everyday America”. If she wanted to show how “everyday American” she is, she should have gone to the Waffle House.
Mr. Prosser
@russell: Waffle House is only everyday America in Texas, which thinks it’s America. Also everyday America for drunks at 2 am in America.
raven
@russell: The ain’t got no Awful Waffle’s in Iowae!
Gin & Tonic
@Mr. Prosser: If I were her Secret Service detail, I wouldn’t let her go to Waffle House.
Belafon
I supported Obama over Clinton because I thought he was the better candidate. In 2015, I’m supporting Clinton because she’s so so so so so much better than the Republicans, and I haven’t seen a credible Democrat yet that I think is better.
I, being an optimist, am just going to enjoy watching Clinton run. The Republicans, their media enablers, and those in the media that have forgotten how to do their jobs, are going to fall over themselves trying to take her down. Those that want to avoid being mysoginistic will bring up stuff about Bill; those that want to avoid talking about Bill will talk about Benghazi.
If you’re going to bang your head against the wall every time someone calls her out for stuff not related to policy, I would like to be your health care insurer, cause I would be rich. Instead, look for people who are going to ask her real questions.
MomSense
@Baud:
As long as HRC never even mentions arugula, because that is an elitist green. She has to be more of a populist so she should go with iceberg.
ETA She should stick with only the things at the Applebees salad bar.
Belafon
@Mr. Prosser: Hey, we have IHOPs as well. But if you’re going to go to an everyday spot in Texas, go to Whataburger. It’s also open 24hrs.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I don’t remember the OJ controversy, but I do recall that he demonstrated elite sensibilities by ordering fancy mustard on a burger once and correctly pronouncing “arugula.”
germy shoemangler
I believe this clip illustrates what Rand Paul was hoping his tv interviews would be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFRg8pRGuJ0
Gene108
It is not a burrito without a tortilla. Thinking you can get one without a tortilla shows poor judgement on Hillary’s part.
I am voting third party!
Cervantes
@Belafon:
Rich?
Ohio Mom
This isn’t about Hillary’s ability to fade into the woodwork, it’s about how clueless most of my fellow-Buckeyes are.
Nothing about the group, including the Secret Service guys, set off anyone’s spidey-sense? Pay some attention to your surroundings, people!
germy shoemangler
I saw this quote on Charlie Pierce’s blog:
“After Rubio officially became speaker, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush presented him with a golden sword called “Chang”—”the sword of a great conservative warrior.” Bush elaborated on what the sword meant: Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society. I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side, and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.”
Does this mean it will be Bush/Rubio vs. Clinton/Castro?
Hildebrand
@Belafon: I think the lament is that none of the coverage will revolve around policy questions. It will be wall to wall banality, masked as ‘concerns’ about this thing or that thing.
And I am not worried about it at all.
I plan on enjoying the March of the Stupid. It will be like my own daily betting pool – what is the dumbest, most innocuous, story about Hillary for the day. Likewise, I plan on truly enjoying the right-wing getting trolled every day. If I were on Clinton’s campaign team, I would hire someone just to poke Hannity and Limbaugh – they need to be at full, stroke-inducing rage/boil on a daily basis over the most knavish of ‘issues’. They need to be chasing red herrings from now until election day. ‘Oh, look, a communist kitty.’ Keep their rage focused on the inconsequential things, and they will take care of themselves. If Politico and others want to follow them down the various rabbit holes, good, we can point and laugh, and the general electorate will tune them out. Then, if the campaign has figured this out, Hillary will simply and directly tell people what is what, and how she plans to move forward.
On with the show!
Josie
@Belafon: My middle son left south Texas to go to college at Northwestern, north of Chicago. Each time he came home, we stopped on the way home from the airport for a Whataburger. That was all he wanted to eat – that and Patos taquitos.
Peale
@Cervantes: yeah. Before Obamacare, I believe the headbanger clause allowed insurers to cancel policies of politically interested blog commentators just when they needed their policies the most.
raven
@germy shoemangler: Hey Wang!
Johannes
If you’re going for full on Time Lord powers, maybe go for the Simm!Master’s lightning throwing abilities.
So you can do something about teh stupid.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I wish I had your brain. To use instead of mine, I mean.
Anyhow, it was in Indiana during the 2008 campaign. At a diner Obama was offered a cup of coffee. He turned it down, asking for orange juice instead. Chris Matthews and David Shuster allowed as how it would have been OK if only he had accepted the coffee and asked for the OJ. (And the rest of the commentariat was even more brilliant in its “analysis” of the “controversy.”)
But let’s also pause to remember John Kerry here, that lily-livered European. In 2004 he ordered a Philly cheese steak with Swiss cheese on it. And he wanted to be President! Of the USA! Is it any wonder he’s been shacked up in Lausanne with the Iranians, sharing nuclear bonbons with them from dawn to dusk and beyond?
Cervantes
@Peale:
I blame Obama!
Wait —
Starfish
@MomSense: Arugula is so 1990s. Kale is the elitist green for this decade.
OzarkHillbilly
Daniel Kibblesmith: If you rearrange the letters in ‘Marco Rubio,’ it spells ‘Birac Uboma’
germy shoemangler
@Cervantes: In 2003 I was waiting my turn in an old-fashioned barbershop, ignoring the conversations* of the snippers and snippees. I glanced through a NYPOST and found a photo of John Kerry throwing a football. The caption said “The French Twist”
*fox news talking points.
Bystander
If I’m not mistaken, the founder of Chipotle is a gay guy.
See, we’ve already got a theme going I can get into.
Cervantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
If only!
danielx
@Cervantes:
Ha….I remember when, during the 2008 campaign, Hillary did a shot (hopefully not of Cuervo) in some auto workers bar in New Castle, and how that was a thing for like three days.
MomSense
@Starfish:
He’s even more aloof and un’murkan than I remembered.
MomSense
@Bystander:
I think Rubio should respond by driving from Florida to Iowa and only stopping at Chick-fil-a.
germy shoemangler
I thought Mr. Mook was going to keep this a drama-free campaign?
But Hillary Rosen goes on twitter:
“@BilldeBlasio’s self aggrandizing on #MeetthePress at @hillaryclintons expense won’t go un noticed. #Ridiculous”
Belafon
@Hildebrand: Agree. I guess my point is that you can either 1) stress out over them, 2) ignore them, or3) laugh at them. I’m going with some of two and three.
Omnes Omnibus
@germy shoemangler: And Ms. Rosen’s position with the HRC campaign is?
dedc79
@danielx: I think it was a boilermaker
germy shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: My error. Looks like she’s a free-lancer.
PurpleGirl
@Betty Cracker: IIRC, the problem was he ordered orange juice at a diner instead of coffee. Me, I’d have ordered both.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes & @PurpleGirl: Thanks for the 411. I don’t recall it, but the GOP-controlled media in FL probably downplayed the incident. They wouldn’t want to suggest there was anything untoward about ordering orange juice since many of them are citrus magnates.
Cervantes
@danielx:
Crown Point, Indiana. She downed a shot of Crown Royal.
And it did not work!
RaflW
@Gene108: I’m sure someone showed the Hillary campaign this famous La Bachmann photo (now with added Rick Perry!) and has decreed, no burritos or any other cylindrical food will be anywhere near the candidates mouth at any time in the next 19 months.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: I had to click it even though I wanted to look away. It was even worse than I remembered. Wasn’t there also a photo of her (presumably) gay husband with one of those, as well?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
Will the two Cervanteses be so kind as to figure out which (or both) of them will add to their nym so we can tell you apart? I feel like a guest star on “The Patty Duke Show” trying to figure out which identical cousin is which. Thank you in advance.
catclub
@Baud: I was outraged that he did not drink coffee in a diner.
Nevermind that as a Mormon, Romney never drinks coffee.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@germy shoemangler:
As multiple people have observed, one of the campaign’s biggest problem is going to be managing the fallout from various freelance supporters trying to be “helpful.” Just wait until Lady Lynn de Rothschild chimes in.
catclub
@OzarkHillbilly: I laughed.
Well, he is biracial.
Mike J
@Mnemosyne (tablet): At least Geraldine Ferraro won’t be fucking anything up this time.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne (tablet): One of them posts with a blue nym (i.e. he links to his website on health policy.) He is the one who posts (much) less frequently.
boatboy_srq
@Cervantes: Pre-ACA calculation.
branford perry
@Hildebrand: Absolutely! American politics is a farce to camouflage the central fact we are not a democracy but a plutocracy, and Hillary is a willing and eager whore for the 0.00002% (the real 1% people talk about is a lot smaller).
My friend DeNeice Kenehan posted the following, which applies here:
Democrat: “I’m pretty sick and tired of this “Hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils,” “Don’t be an ideological purist” and “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” crap too. I want to be excited again – like my parents were about JFK in 1960 and Anita and I were about BHO in 2008. These candidates were not perfect and pure yet they attracted voters to the polls. “I Offer Hope and Change” is more alluring than “I Could Be Even Worse.”
Why is Secretary Clinton the wrong choice? I thought you’d never ask:
* She’s pro-fracking.
* She’s too cozy with Big Oil.
* She’s too cozy with low-wage, pro-sprawl, anti-union Wal-Mart – she served on its Board of Directors from 1986 to 1992.
* She’s too cozy with Wall Street (read Rolling Stone’s “Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs Problem.”)
* She was one of the most hawkish members of President Obama’s cabinet, rattling sabers about a nuclear Iran and bragging about having presided over the imposition of “crippling sanctions” on the Iranian economy during her tenure as secretary of state.
* She strongly defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s criminal and despicable assault on Gaza.
* She voted for the Patriot Act and accused whistleblower Edward Snowden of “supporting terrorism” for revealing the seamy side of American military operations to the American people.
* She co-sponsored legislation to criminalize flag-burning.
* She voted to loosen restrictions on cell phone wiretapping.
* She’s pro-death penalty.
* She voted for the Iraq war and it took her more than ten years to express regret for that vote.
* She’s supported off-shore oil drilling.
* She refuses to reveal where she stands on the Keystone XL pipeline proposal.
* She’s pro-GMO – even going so far as to appoint a former Monsanto lobbyist to her team of campaign advisors.
* She’s pandered to the pro-censorship crowd when it comes to video games.
* In 2005, she supported the Workplace Religious Freedom Act which, according to the ACLU, would effectively have legalized discrimination.
This is just a partial list. (Visit this link for more about where she stands on the issues.) You can’t say I haven’t done my homework.”- Patrick Diehl
http://pdiehl.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-im-not-voting-for-hillary-clinton.html?m=1
(I’d add HILLARY’s WAR in Libya. We stopped her other one– Syria.-DeNeice Kenehan )
What’s the Diehl?: Why I’m Not Voting for Hillary Clinton
Clockiel
I REFUSE to vote for anyone who would eat a Chipotle burrito. I just can’t do it.
Soprano2
What this tells me is how invisible older women are to so many people. Either that or those employees are the least observant people on the planet.
Yahzi
@branford perry: Democrat: “I’m pretty sick and tired of this “Hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils,” “Don’t be an ideological purist” and “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” crap too reality. I want to be excited believe in fantasies again.
FIFY.
Citizen Alan
@MomSense:
I remember laughing at the arugala complaints because at that time, McDonalds was marketing an arugala salad, while it was actually moose meat that was outrageously expensive everywhere outside of Caribou Barbie’s neck of the woods.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hilary Rosen’s position with HRC should hopefully be nothing at all. I detest that woman.