This just in: Hillary Clinton commands a pretty penny when asked to make a public speaking appearance.
As breathless news stories about her hundred-thousand-dollar speaking fees have continued to reappear in some of the nation’s biggest news outlets over the last few months, conservative operatives take every chance they get to paint Clinton as an out-of-touch elitist.
A nascent 2016 attack line? Yes, of course. But also an element of conservatives — and maybe to some extent journalists — still refighting the last war, when Mitt Romney’s personal wealth defined him as aloof and inaccessible.
Peel back the layers, and it is an interesting case study in the GOP’s uneasy position in the politics of personal wealth, as Hillary gears up for a campaign that is expected to focus if not explicitly on the theme of income inequality, then to at least play off the issue’s striking imagery of struggling lower-class voters left behind by the gilded robber baron class.
The latest story came last week, when the Washington Post reported that Clinton received $300,000 for a March speech at the University of California-Los Angeles. Some of the details weren’t flattering. Clinton’s representatives told the university that this was the “special university rate” and they had some very specific requests: a spread of hummus and crudités along with some cushions to be kept backstage in case she got uncomfortable.It was quickly picked up by conservative media outlets and pushed out by America Rising PAC, the opposition research firm focused almost exclusively on undermining a Clinton 2016 presidential bid.
Hummus: $5
Crudité: $19
Speaking fee: $300,000
Making students pay for it: Priceless
http://t.co/uPNWeKZgDA cc @ClintonCosts @HillaryClinton
— America Rising PAC (@AmericaRising) November 27, 2014
But this was just the latest in a series of stories along the same lines from top outlets like the Post, which has become favored material for Republicans. But Hillary is no Mitt. His catalyzing comments about the “47 percent” defined the 2012 election precisely because he was fabulously wealthy — remember the car elevator? — from a career in high finance. But if GOP attacks on her speaking fees can still preemptively render her a less effective messenger against whomever the GOP nominee may be, then they will likely have achieved their purpose.
One of the first episodes in the speaking-fee genre stemmed from reports in June that Clinton would receive $225,000 to speak at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Student leaders complained, which Republican researchers quickly seized on. The Post followed up with an exhaustive look at eight Clinton speeches where she was paid top dollar by universities — at a “time of austerity,” as the headline put it. The newspaper published another report after it obtained the contract for Clinton’s $275,000 speech at the University of Buffalo. She asked for a stenographer to transcribe the speech and a special seating area for friends and aides. Outlets from Fox News to Mother Jones have run similar headlines in the last six months.
Some of the nuance might get lost in the big-dollar headlines — private donors sometimes cover the full cost of Clinton’s appearance and she has pledged to donate the proceedings to the Clinton Foundation, rather than pocket them. But it is easy to understand why the Clinton speaking tour is fertile ground for both journalists and Republicans following up on their reports. Clinton has been in public life for more than 30 years. She is one of the most exhaustively researched people in American politics. But the speaking fees, which cover the time since she left the State Department, offer a fresh area for investigation by reporters and a new line of attack from conservatives, whether or not they actually say a whole lot about her prospective candidacy.
They are also easy to connect to the clumsy “dead broke” comments that got Clinton into trouble during her summer book tour. It is easy to craft a caricature of a removed politician without much grounding in the real world, and Republicans clearly think it’s an effective line. They created a whole website — Poor Hillary Clinton — as an online home for it.
“Hillary Clinton’s speaking fee at UNLV is more than 4 times what the average Nevadan makes in a year,” Republican National Committee spokesman Jahan Wilcox said of that report. “With tuition rates set to spike by 17 percent at UNLV, it’s sad that Hillary Clinton thinks she’s so broke that it’s necessary to slap them with a $225,000 speaking fee.”
They’ve taken the trolling game to another level, too, issuing a public call for the Clinton Foundation to prove that Clinton has been keeping her word to donate those generous speaking fees to her family’s non-profit. American Rising PAC listed in detail the documents — IRS form and financial audits — that the foundation should release.
“After mounting political pressure, Hillary Clinton chose to donate her near $2 million speaking fees from colleges and universities many of whom are raising tuition on cash-strapped students to her own foundation, opening the door to questions about just how that foundation is spending money,” America Rising PAC executive director Tim Miller said in a statement. “In the past, the Clinton Foundation has spent millions on opulent travel and lodging for her family, financed glitzy, celebrity-fueled donor events and paid key Democratic aides who would likely play key roles in her presidential campaign.”
“For Americans to credibly believe these speaking fees are being donated to charitable endeavors,” he continued, “the foundation must be transparent about how and where it has spent its millions since Hillary Clinton joined last year.”
And that is certainly not the last that we’ll hear about it.
