Forget about the Arkansas days, the small-bore scandals, her health care plan and most everything else from the 1990s. A consensus is forming within the Republican Party that the plan of attack against Hillary Clinton should be of a more recent vintage, rooted in her accumulation of wealth and designed to frame her as removed from the concerns of average Americans.

With close to 20 announced and prospective GOP candidates in 2016, there’s no singular, unified messaging effort yet. But interviews with GOP consultants, party officials and the largest conservative super PACs point to an emerging narrative of a wealthy, out-of-touch candidate who plays by her own set of rules and lives in a world of private planes, chauffeured vehicles and million-dollar homes.


The out-of-touch plutocrat template is a familiar one: Democrats used it to devastating effect against Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. While Hillary Clinton’s residences in New York and Washington may not have car elevators, there’s still a lengthy trail of paid speeches, tone-deaf statements about the family finances and questions about Clinton family foundation fundraising practices that will serve as cornerstones of the anti-Clinton messaging effort.

“She’s admitted she hasn’t driven a car for decades; she probably doesn’t ever go into a coffee shop and talk to regular people unless it’s for a staged photo-op,” said American Crossroads CEO Steven Law, alluding to Clinton’s portrayal in her campaign’s launch video on Sunday. “She really has lived the life of a 1-percenter these last several years, and it shows.

“We know her team is working to rebrand her as a relatable, regular person; the question is, can she actually perform in a way that convinces people she is that person? We think that’s going to be hard for her.”

The outlines of the effort to Mitt Romnify Hillary Clinton are still being sketched. Crossroads, the super PAC that spent $70 million in 2012 mostly on television ads attacking President Barack Obama, is in the middle of an extensive research project analyzing voters’ existing perceptions of Clinton and their reactions to a number of potential critiques. But the Republican National Committee has done focus groups that suggest Clinton is more vulnerable to charges of being imperious and bending the rules than anything else tested against her.

“The most potent message against Clinton is that she doesn’t live an average life, she’s out of touch and doesn’t play by the same set of rules,” said the RNC’s research director, Raj Shah. “[T]hat resonates more deeply than some of the policy hits, the ethical hits.”

Sen. Rand Paul — who announced his own 2016 bid Tuesday — is planning to trace the edges of the GOP argument in cable television ads that will run in four early voting states this week. “Hillary Rodham Clinton represents the worst of the Washington machine. The arrogance of power, corruption, cover up. Conflicts of interest,” the spots say. “The Washington machine is destroying the American dream.”

As early as Sunday night, just hours after her digital campaign launch, the rapid response team at America Rising — the opposition research super PAC that’s been focused on Clinton since its 2013 launch — corrected news reports that Clinton “was driving to Iowa” in a van by reminding reporters that she hasn’t actually gotten behind a steering wheel herself in 19 years.

America Rising has sifted through nearly three decades of statements by Clinton, sorting and stockpiling audio and video clips that can and will be fired off as part of the group’s effort to keep the likely Democratic nominee back on her heels. The super PAC is uniquely suited for the job — its founder and chairman, Matt Rhoades, is Romney’s former campaign manager.

Clinton herself provided some of the choicest and freshest material. The subject of her growing wealth forced Clinton into a defensive posture while on a book tour last year, leading to a tin-eared remark about being “not that well off” despite being paid $200,000 per speech and receiving an $8 million advance on the book itself.

She explained that she and Bill Clinton earned their millions “through dint of hard work.”

“Who talks like that?” said GOP strategist Kevin Madden, who advised Romney’s campaign in 2012. “Most Americans don’t understand accumulating millions in wealth through speaking fees. Hillary Clinton has not driven a car in this century; how can she relate to the cost of gas? How can she relate to rising food prices when she doesn’t shop for herself?”

Republicans view new questions about the Clinton Foundation’s fundraising efforts — especially donations from foreign governments Hillary Clinton did official business with while leading the State Department — as equally damning, perhaps even evoking long-forgotten memories of a president who rewarded his biggest donors with stays in the Lincoln bedroom.

“There is so much at that nexus of politics and money and she hasn’t had to answer for it yet,” said Jeff Bechdel, communications director for America Rising. “It will remind voters of what they didn’t like about the Clinton era.”

The GOP also intends to mine last month’s revelation that Clinton used her private email address and server to conduct business as secretary of state, then deleted thousands of emails she deemed to be personal. The controversy has already put a dent in her poll numbers: According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, 56 percent of Colorado voters said she is not honest and trustworthy.

“The importance of the emails wasn’t people concluding that she’d done something wrong but that it reinforces the old idea of the Clintons as people who play by their own set of rules,” said Ed Goeas, president and CEO of The Tarrance Group, a GOP polling firm.

Republicans, however, admit to having serious concerns about whether the party — with its disparate voices and constituencies — is disciplined enough to maintain the proper tone, or to sustain a cohesive message against a tested opponent who, for all her vulnerabilities, remains a formidable candidate.

“It’s going to be a real challenge for Republicans to strike the right balance,” said Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chairman and longtime operative in the West. “We cannot have a candidate who comes across like [Clinton’s GOP opponent in New York’s 2000 U.S. Senate race] Rick Lazio, marching across the debate stage and getting in Hillary’s face. We have to be aware of how the optics are different when going after a woman.”

California-based strategist Rob Stutzman agreed that the calibration of the attacks matters a great deal.

“We’ve got to be careful not to make it too personal,” he said. “The voters we’re talking to in the primary don’t like Hillary Clinton, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that she’s well-respected in American politics and she’s earned that.”

Operatives worry that over-the-top attacks — namely, references to her age or the Monica Lewinsky scandal — will simply serve to generate sympathy for Clinton.

“That wasn’t Hillary; that was Bill,” said Jamie Burnett, a GOP operative in New Hampshire. “We’re trying to beat Hillary, not make people feel sorry for her.”