The Clinton campaign’s decision to use a van (nicknamed “Scooby”) for her work on the ground is not quite as “spontaneous” and fresh as some pundits on the left would have us believe. In fact, she used the exact same approach back in her 2000 senatorial campaign when advisers determined that riding around in a limo wasn’t good "optics."
When the armored van tour was announced, the media immediately portrayed the choice as original and refreshing. NBC’s Chuck Todd praised Clinton’s Scooby bus as a rarity in politics: something that actually appeared “spontaneous.”
The Washington Post wrote of Clinton’s “unconventional” mode of transportation that it “underscores Clinton’s attempt to reintroduce herself to the American public in a less scripted, unassuming manner.”
One problem with the “unscripted" campaign notion: the whole van thing--including the Scooby Doo reference--is recycled from her 2000 senatorial campaign.
Several folks caught it on Twitter, eventually forcing the likes of Chuck Todd to acknowledge that the new Hillary campaign looks a whole lot like the old Hillary campaign.
Here’s the relevant passage from the Clinton bio that made the rounds on Twitter:
They were driving around New York in an armored brown van, “which we had called the mystery machine, the Scooby Doo van, which was an interesting to drive and learned to manipulate,” the agent tells me in an interview. That’s because Hillary and her staff objected to the customary limo the First Lady would normally use. They complained the “optics” weren’t right for an aspiring senator who wanted to look like she was a woman of the people—and not a product of the White House.
