Hillary Clinton Begins Campaign Trail with Roadtrip in a Minivan Called Scooby, Goes Unrecognized in Ohio

 

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 neither the staff nor patrons recognized her in line. Or maybe it as her sunglasses.

Mrs. Clinton kicked off her second bid for the White House with a surprise 1,000 mile-trip from New York to Iowa.

It is far cry from the private jet that has often carried her to speaking performances, or the chartered helicopter that ferried her between rallies in the first voting state of Iowa in her failed presidential campaign eight years ago.

Click to see a photo taken of surveillance camera recordings at the Chipotle restaurant.

 

Instead, Hillary Clinton has taken a 1,000 mile road-trip in a vehicle she has dubbed the “Scooby Doo van” to reach the first campaign appearance of her fresh bid to become US president.

The former first lady and secretary of state chose the unusual mode of transport to travel from her home in New York to Iowa, in a small convoy with aides and Secret Service agents.

While Mrs Clinton is unlikely to face a major challenger for the Democratic party nomination, her campaign team is trying to avoid the sense of entitlement that dogged her 2008 campaign, when she entered the race as a heavy favourite only to be upset in Iowa by Barack Obama.

Last time, Mrs Clinton flew into large rallies across Iowa in a helicopter that she christened the “Hill-a-copter” – an attempt at light heartedness that flopped badly.

This week, she will be kicking off her presidential bid with two small appearances, closed to the public and most media, after her journey across five states.

Aides said that she had named the van after the vehicle in the Scooby Doo cartoon series and film of the 1970s, although its actual appearance remained a mystery when her caravan slipped off unnoticed from her home in upstate New York for an estimated 16-hour journey.

Mrs Clinton entered the 2016 race with a campaign video that cast her as a “champion” of “everyday Americans” after focusing on a diverse cross-section of the modern US population.