The GOP Pack’s Anti-Hillary Playbooks

Each GOP candidate takes his own approach to opposing the Democrats’ heiress apparent.

After a week of highlights, including a “Scooby van,” an undercover Chipotle pit stop, and an astroturf “roundtable” at an Iowa coffee shop, one could be forgiven for not taking Hillary Clinton’s campaign rollout too seriously.

But for GOP candidates planning to take on the all-but-inevitable Democratic nominee, laughter is a luxury they can’t afford. Whether they have just declared their candidacies or are still nursing exploratory committees, Republican front-runners are already pulling out the anti-Hillary playbooks.

In contrast to the antediluvian Clinton dynasty, most hope to emphasize a youthful, fresh-faced approach — though not all candidates will have the easiest time selling that perception. But differences in the style and substance of their game plans are already apparent, offering hints at what to expect in the primaries and how a general election match-up may shake out.

All three of the candidates who have already declared hope to use their freshman-senator status to appeal to those dreading the return of 1990s politics. In his campaign announcement, Florida senator Marco Rubio said Clinton was “a leader from yesterday,” accusing her of “taxing and borrowing and regulating like it was 1999.” Kentucky senator Rand Paul’s first campaign ad begins with an ominous look at “a road to yesterday,” warning voters of “a place we’ve been to before” as a Hillary 2008 poster flaps in the breeze. In a video reaction to her campaign announcement, Texas senator Ted Cruz said Hillary Clinton “represents the failed policies of the past.”

Outside of Washington, a young Republican governor hopes to tap into that same appetite for fresh leadership. “Obviously [Scott] Walker is a younger guy,” a source close to the Wisconsin governor told National Review. “He has new ideas and comes from a different generation, and I think that’s something that certainly will be on display.”

While age and freshness are assets for most of the GOP front-runners, the same can’t be said of Jeb Bush. With a history in national politics stretching back decades and his own familial dynasty to cope with, the former Florida governor has been forced to take a different tack from his competitors. A video released by the governor’s “Right to Rise” PAC after Hillary’s presidential announcement plays down references to stale, old policies and fresh faces.

“We would need a nominee that has demonstrated they have the seriousness to take on Hillary,” a source close to Bush told NR when asked about the discrepancy. “‘New’ demands new ideas and the ability to attract new donors — it has to be more than an inch deep.”

The subtle jab at his Republican rivals’ “newness” is unusual for the Jeb Bush team, which has so far largely shied away from criticizing anybody but Hillary. Given his outstanding fundraising success so far — his PAC raised $1.3 million at a D.C. fundraiser last month, and that’s without officially declaring — attacks on his GOP opponents could be seen as premature.

But those ties to D.C. money may also make it difficult for Bush to hit Clinton on her Washington-insider status — exactly the strategy that Walker, another front-runner with executive experience, hopes to pursue. A source close to the governor says he plans to use his outsider credentials to tap into the “angst” against D.C. and the ritzy politico lifestyle that Clinton (and some of Walker’s GOP opponents) enjoy.

“He’s the only middle-class candidate in the field,” the source says, calling it “a stark contrast to the Clintons and their struggle to be relatable.”

SLIDESHOW: No Votes for Hillary

Walker may be getting aggressive, but it’s Paul who stands out as the attack dog of the group. The Kentucky senator has been at Clinton’s throat since January 2013, when he took her to task for her mishandling of the Benghazi attacks during a House hearing. “I would’ve relieved you of your post,” he told the departing secretary of state. And he’s hardly let up since then — calling foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation “thinly veiled bribes,” saying she “clearly broke the law” when she failed to turn over work-related e-mails from a private server, and poking fun at the former secretary of state with fake Hillary hard drives, mocking Pinterest accounts, and riffs on all the “baggage” she carries.

Paul has already shown signs that he’ll deploy this scorched-earth strategy not only against Clinton and the media, but against his primary opponents as well. He explicitly targeted Jeb Bush for drug-war “hypocrisy” due to the former governor’s marijuana use as a teenager, and he attacked his GOP rivals for advocating the same hawkish foreign policy as Hillary Clinton.

#related#Rubio, meanwhile, is taking the opposite of Paul’s prickly approach. Though the smooth-talking senator has certainly criticized Clinton, he’s done so with a softer touch than most of his GOP rivals. He’s even shied away from hitting his fellow Republicans. A source close to the senator told NR he refuses to “criticize anybody else in the race (or thinking about getting in the race).”

Instead, the Florida senator is hoping his substantial charisma and media savvy will contrast favorably with Hillary’s stilted attempts to connect with voters. After his campaign announcement last Monday, Rubio sat down for in-depth interviews with Fox News’s Sean Hannity and ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos — the kind of high-profile access most other candidates are largely eschewing for now. He even made a point to chat amiably about electronic dance music with a TMZ reporter waiting for him at the airport — a sharp contrast to Hillary Clinton’s awkward run-in with the same reporter last month.

Without a clear party favorite and with other potential candidates waiting in the wings, it’s hard to tell whether the Republican front-runners will cling to their burgeoning anti-Hillary playbooks or discard them in favor of new strategies. For now, most seem more comfortable contrasting their fresh ideas to Clinton’s dynastic designs than trashing one another. How long that uneasy peace lasts, however, is anyone’s guess.