OPINION:
The silly season begins, when nobody follows presidential politics but the men and women of press and tube who are paid to do it. Still, on her first venture out of the shadows we learned several substantial things about “the new Hillary.” She stopped at a Chipotle on the highway south of Toledo, en route to Iowa, and nobody recognized her behind a pair of dark sunglasses. She lunched on a chicken burrito bowl (with guacamole) and when she pulled into her hotel in Pittsburgh she was not hungry for further fine dining, and ordered “Scooby snacks” from the room-service menu. She’s traveling in an “upgraded” Chevrolet van, “approved” by the Secret Service, christened “the Scooby van.”
Marco Rubio, on his first day on the road, following a rally the night before in his hometown of Miami, made the television network tour, answering questions, some of them pointed, of Sean Hannity at Fox News, George Stephanopoulos at ABC and Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio. Hillary’s aides say she will eventually answer questions like that, too, but for now she faced only selected students and teachers at a community college. She should be wary of community colleges; sometimes such kids are better at this than the network stars and their back-up of researchers and producers. The kids never have a producer’s voice in their ears, telling them what to ask, and their insights show it.
Once in Iowa, Hillary faced skepticism of everything she represents. “I think the whole government sucks,” says a cashier at Casey’s General Store in Monticello. “They need to stop running my life. It’s everything, including my health care. Especially my health care.” Iowa won’t be all strawberries and cream.
The past that Mrs. Clinton, 67, represents seems old and tired, and she looks the part with her determination to hide from the public behind dark glasses, campaigning with canned and poll-tested statements dished out by aides, consultants and retainers. She will no doubt improve her game, but in the early going she continued to look and sound like the reluctant candidate, as if wishing she were somewhere else, at ease with her money.
Mr. Rubio, on the other hand, at 43 recalls the energy and vigor of John F. Kennedy at a similar time of national peril and confusion at the top. He even sounded echoes of JFK’s inaugural speech, with its declaration that the torch had been passed to a new generation. “Before us now is the opportunity to author the greatest chapter yet in the amazing story of America,” Mr. Rubio said at the opening rally in Miami. “But we can’t do that by going back to the leaders and ideas of the past. We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”
The events of the opening day stepped on Hillary’s rollout, as if casting a shadow from the past. Vice President Joe Biden, looking at the attention lavished on Hillary, reminded her that he might run, too. “I haven’t made up my mind on that,” he said to reporters at the White House in what was more rambling soliloquy than decisive words from the wise. “I have plenty of time to do that. If I am wrong, I’m dead wrong.”
And if that were not shadow enough over Hillary’s opening day, there was something from a man whose administration she will want everyone to forget she was part of. “It’s a little early for endorsements,” said President Obama, “but here’s what I can say. She is talented, tenacious, was a great secretary of state. She is a friend of mine and I think she would be an excellent president.” He forgot only weary, evasive and stale.
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