As she strikes an increasingly populist pose ahead of the 2016 Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton may have to forego a Hamptons house this summer, the New York Times reports. Houses on the Hamptons rent for hundreds of thousands of dollars a month: the “optics,” as they say, are not great.

In 2011 and 2012, the Clintons rented an eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot home in East Hampton for part of August. According to the Times, comparable homes rent for $200,000 per month. In 2013, they stayed in a six-bedroom mansion in Sagoponack, where Hillary apparently worked on her memoir, Hard Choices.

Several local real estate agents speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Times that the Clintons have looked into renting a home on the eastern end of Long Island again this year—the family has summered there on and off since the ‘90s—but have not signed a lease.

From the Times:

But the Clintons’ go-to vacation spot for the last several summers now seems problematic, as Mrs. Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, delivers a populist economic message that the deck is stacked in favor of the wealthiest Americans and that she plans to “reshuffle the cards.”

Thus, it may not be ideal for Mr. and Mrs. Clinton to be photographed mingling at summer cocktail parties with the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Alec Baldwin, Steven Spielberg and other wealthy Hamptons regulars.

Never any lack of hard choices for Hillary, then.

The real trouble, though, is that the Clintons are likely to be spending a lot of time on the Hamptons anyway, for fundraising. “There is only going to be one fund-raiser for Hillary in the Hamptons this summer: it starts on Memorial Day and ends on Labor Day,” Robert Zimmerman, who has a home in Southampton, told the Times.

“It’s a time for people to show their allegiance and show off their houses at the same time,” said public relations exec and “Hamptons hostess” Alison Brod.

“Some of us will go into catastrophic withdrawal if we’re not tapped to raise money for one of the Clintons,” PR exec and Democratic activist Ken Sunshine joked (?).

If you ask me, she can’t afford not to rent a place!

Photo credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.