WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton likes to say that she is a better-vetted, more battle-tested Democrat than her rival, Sen. Barack Obama.

That may be true, but it won't stop Republicans from mounting familiar criticism against her if she wins the Democratic presidential nomination.

The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, probably would use her failed 1990s attempt to overhaul health care to prove that she loves big government, her sponsorship of a bill to fund a Woodstock museum in New York to sneer that she's a counterculture-loving liberal, and the checkered record of Bill Clinton's administration to tie her in knots, according to Republican strategists who are not affiliated with McCain's campaign.

"You make the campaign all about Hillary Rodham Clinton, probably the most polarizing figure in American politics today," said Scott Reed, who managed former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole's unsuccessful 1996 White House run.

"Nothing rallies Republicans around the country better than a Clinton. Her presence on radio and television is the equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard."

To rile up the Republican base, McCain would probably cite Clinton's present positions to take voters back to the past. As Clinton touts her new plan for universal health care, McCain would cite her 1993-94 plan. Republicans ridiculed that as "Hillarycare," calling it a bloated, complicated, government-run step toward socialized medicine.

A TV commercial that a health insurance industry lobby paid for delivered the death blow to her plan. It featured "Harry and Louise," a middle-age couple at a kitchen table, poring over bills and lamenting Clinton's plan.

"We would go after her health care plan," said Neil Newhouse, a partner at Public Opinion Strategies, a Virginia-based Republican polling firm.

"It would be socialized medicine, Canada, fining people who don't have health care."

Newhouse thinks Clinton is also vulnerable on taxes. She wants to allow President Bush's tax cuts to expire to help pay for her initiatives, and advocates raising taxes on wealthy investors.

He said he would also tag Clinton as being on the losing side of the culture wars by reminding voters of the three days of peace and music at Woodstock in 1969. She didn't attend the legendary music festival, but she did sponsor legislation seeking $1 million to help pay for a Woodstock museum in New York.

"You say, 'How does she pay for it? She raises your taxes,' " Newhouse said.

McCain has aired a 30-second TV ad in some primary states with footage of Woodstock revelers followed by grainy black-and-white footage of himself as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as a McCain voice-over says he would have attended, "but I was tied up at the time."

Some Republican strategists also think McCain can win by linking Clinton to controversies from her husband's administration. She is already on the defensive about the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Bill Clinton considered one of his crowning presidential achievements but which labor unions and populists think paved the way for shipping U.S. jobs to Mexico.

"She's carrying a big ol' fat suitcase named Bill," said Peter Schramm, a political science professor at Ashland University and a former Reagan administration official. "You tie her up in knots and get her to contradict herself, not only because she's a Democrat but because she's married to the last president."

On national security issues and foreign affairs, several strategists said McCain would try to paint Clinton as soft on terrorism, noting that she voted to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq but later said she wished she could take back her vote.

Bill Dal Col thinks Clinton would have a hard time going toe to toe against McCain on national security largely because of sex stereotypes.

"The male image will be seen as stronger on security than the female image," said Dal Col, who managed Republican Steve Forbes' 1996 presidential campaign.

"It may not be fair, but that's the social perception."