Following a Sunday night and Monday morning in which the networks cheered Hillary Clinton’s announcement of a presidential campaign, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC returned for more late Monday where all three evening newscasts acclaimed her road trip to Iowa and stop for food at a Chipotle in Ohio.
All the while, ABC and CBS ignored yet again the numerous scandals surrounding the former First Lady and secretary of state while NBC made only a brief reference to Benghazi and her e-mail scandal.
Leading off NBC Nightly News, correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell emphatically touted both the road trip and Clinton as a person [emphasis mine]:
It is certainly an unconventional launch, her campaign for the presidency. One of the best known women in America, on her road trip here to Iowa, stopping at coffee shops like this one and trying to blend in along the way. For her first day on the road, this was the only evidence Hillary Clinton was campaigning. Her tweeted picture from a gas station stop near Altoona, Pennsylvania[.]
Commenting on her Chipotle stop, Mitchell stated that her ordering of fast-food was one of many “tantalizing hints of a seemingly carefree jaunt from the Clinton estate in Chappaqua across key battleground states.”
Continuing to praise the campaign optics, Mitchell added that it all has been “[c]arefully choreographed to re-introduce Hillary Clinton as the self-declared champion of everyday Americans like those seen in her campaign video.”
After summarizing the numerous backgrounds of people in her campaign video (including “a group with grow political clout – gays”), Mitchell made the only network mention on Monday evening of Clinton’s scandals: “Clinton’s video did not mention her most recent job, secretary of state and questions she's sure to face about foreign policy failures, like Benghazi or more recently, her deleted e-mails.”
Over on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir, Clinton campaign correspondent Cecilia Vega picked up from where she left off from Monday morning and again touted her “stealth” road trip to Iowa:
Grainy security camera images capturing the presidential candidate she was wearing sunglasses and nobody recognized her. Clinton is on a two-day stealth road trip traveling in this black van. It's just Clinton, her team and a Secret Service detail driving along an undisclosed route though the Midwest, heading here to Iowa. Along the way, she's meeting what she calls “everyday Americans.”
At the conclusion of her report, Vega returned to an early Clinton trademark by promoting her campaign stops set for Tuesday:
And with one failed bid for the White House in the rearview mirror. Now? The long journey to election day begins. What we do is that tomorrow, Hillary Clinton will be here in Iowa for her first official campaign stop. She will meeting with small groups of voters, business owners, and educators and, David, those everyday Americans she keeps talking about.
Reporting from Iowa for the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, correspondent Nancy Cordes also noted the Chipotle stop and sat down with a group of Democratic activists from a Des Moines suburb, who remained non-committal on their support of Clinton until they get to meet her in person.
Despite noting the tepid reception Clinton has thus far in the Hawkeye State and the desire by her roundtable of activists to have more Democratic candidates, Cordes made no mention of Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation scandal, or any of the other numerous scandals and controversies facing Clinton.
The relevant portions fo the transcript from April 13's NBC Nightly News can be found below.
NBC Nightly News
April 13, 2015
7:01 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Off and Running]
LESTER HOLT: Meantime, just over 24 hours into her Twitter-launched candidacy, Hillary Clinton has barely been seen, apparently by design. Only sightings of her posted online as she makes her way to Iowa by car. Yes, it's her on a security camera video at a fast-food restaurant. This has started out at least as a very low-key campaign kickoff. We're covering both campaign launches tonight. Andrea Mitchell starts us off in Des Moines, Iowa. Andrea, good evening.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Good evening, Lester. It is certainly an unconventional launch, her campaign for the presidency. One of the best known women in America, on her road trip here to Iowa, stopping at coffee shops like this one and trying to blend in along the way. For her first day on the road, this was the only evidence Hillary Clinton was campaigning. Her tweeted picture from a gas station stop near Altoona, Pennsylvania and pictures from Chris Learn, a college student who bumped into her.
(....)
MITCHELL: And, this afternoon security camera video of her ordering a chicken bowl with guacamole at a Chipotle outside Toledo, tantalizing hints of a seemingly carefree jaunt from the Clinton estate in Chappaqua across key battleground states, more than a thousand miles to her first public event tomorrow in Iowa. Carefully choreographed to re-introduce Hillary Clinton as the self-declared champion of everyday Americans like those seen in her campaign video.
(....)
MITCHELL: Trying to re-create the voting blocs of the Obama-winning combination from '08. Women, Latinos, African-Americans, millennials.
(....)
MITCHELL: And a group with grow political clout – gays.
(.....)
MITCHELL: Clinton’s video did not mention her most recent job, secretary of state and questions she's sure to face about foreign policy failures, like Benghazi or more recently, her deleted e-mails. Instead, she's borrowing language from critics on the left, like Senator Elizabeth Warren about the economy.
(....)
MITCHELL: And so she gets here tomorrow, she’s going to be meeting people in small groups, trying to reconnect with the very voters the Iowans who rejected her soundly. She came in third when she ran for the presidency last time around in Iowa.
