Mitch Perry
Love her or loath her, Hillary Clinton‘s official presence in the 2016 presidential sweepstakes is a big deal. But does the political media class have to lose their collective sh*t in the process?
It was sort of humorous to read that story the other day about how Clinton’s delayed video release announcing her campaign on Sunday (it came after 3 p.m. when it was thought to happen at noon) had affected the leisure schedules of so many reporters, who had their brunch and/or bicycling schedules altered.
Tuesday a collection of still and video photographers were made to look like a pack of animals as they sprinted to try to get a glimpse of Clinton in her “Scooby” van in Iowa. I actually felt sorry for them, because no doubt their work assignment was about getting a shot at the newly announced Democratic candidate. They looked liked fools, but blame their assignment editors.
NBC and MSNBC during the past 18 hours have been hyping their correspondent Kristen Welker, and her “exclusive” interview with Clinton on Tuesday before she hopped in the van.
Total duration of said interview? 15 seconds.
The most egregious form of hysteria, though, has to be Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, Mr. Conventional Wisdom himself. Speaking about Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin‘s clandestine visit to a Chipotle on Monday, Halperin declared Tuesday on Morning Joe, “Part of why yesterday was so successful is she looks like she’s having fun, and she’s doing, for her, new stuff,” he said. “We’ve never seen her get a burrito before.”
Um, he did not say that? Did he?
Yeah, he did.
The good news is, there’s only another a year and half of this to deal with … Oh, right. That’s not good.
In other news …
Well, he did it. Barack Obama Tuesday indicated that he will take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Tampa U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor hailed the move; Marco Rubio, not so much.
Rubio’s conservative stance on liberalizing relations with Cuba is well known, of course. But the DNC isn’t shy in chastising him for it.
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It’s early days, but the Hillsborough County District 6 Democratic Primary contest in 2016 is already getting a bit spicy between Pat Kemp and Brian Willis.
