Spot on.

There's no reason for a somebody like HRC to have to dive into the muck with a nobody like Palin. All she has to do is remind the voters that McCain thinks he can steal with the Palin pick that McCain is treating them like fools.

Try holding your breath until Hil enters the fray. The Dems have an innate ability to turn victory into defeat. I'm just trying to figure how they'll do it!

You cannot engage Palin using rational argument alone. That will fail. She is an overnight sensation based on what? Her fans go for her because 'she rocks'. What does this mean? They believe she will kick ass for them. Obama, Hillary have to keep the focus on McCain hiding behind her skirts, and on the policies the she and McCain support. They need to bring it all back home. What will 4 years of Palin-McCain do for you? Where will we be in 4 years of Palin-McCain,vs where will we be in 4 years of Obama-Biden.

McCain is only up right now because of HER popularity. But talk about instant celebrity! Where is HER substance? The question is how to make her look weak. Because, as a leader, she IS weak. She never finishes what she starts. She says one thing, but does another. She got rid of the old boys network, but built a new one. She's weak. Obama must be strong.

As another poster notec, the Democrats have an inate ability to turn victory into defeat - or at least whenever they try to be like Republicans or anything else other than the party that is SUPPOSED to be looking out for the everyman instead of lining up Corporate checks.

"Just once, it you are going to follow Karl Rove's lead, use it to your advantage. How?

There are enough clips of ROVE himself saying opposite things about experience, woman bashing, running away from reporters, being a "commentator" on a "News program" but refusing to answer a Supeona from Congress on the same topic that all the money the Democratic party has collected since they counseled Obama to refuse public financing should focus on the REPUBLICAN PUBLIC FLIP FLOPS. Heck, just ask "The Daily Show" for the clips if they can't find the time between schmoozing big donors. Fight populist comedy with comedy, you would think that would be easy enough.
Pictures are worth a thousand words and repeated enough they become what "the people" "know". Just ask Rove, he has been beating back the Democrats and the Constitution for DECADES using this simple tactic:
Tell the Lie. Repeat the Lie, Have someone else tell the lie a little differently and Repeat the original lie.
Repeat until BOTH sides use the same words and therefore prove YOU were right all along.

Agreed, but for tactical reasons. Palin's antics are designed not to appeal to Clinton-supporting women, which survey data shows they do not, but to culturally conservative lower to middle income white men, which they do. Nothing would motivate this demographic even more or more of them than Hillary Clinton.

The way to take down Palin is to use her flaws to call into question MCcain's judgement and undermine his claims to put "country first"; she's an obviously political choice to placate the hard-right, rather than a choice that will help govern. The ones to make this case are a) Democrats with reform credentials, like Feingold (who has been entirely absent this election), and b) non-partisan, republicans or ex-republicans who can talk about how openly partisan and political the GOP has been for the last 8 years (Hegel, Leach, Lugar, Lydia Green of AK).

And the rhetoric should be to tie Palin to the disaster of the AK GOP. Public statements up and down the DEmocratic party asking if she's going to endorse Ted Stevens, asking if she'll give back the federal money for the bridge to nowhere project she kept for AK, and above all, why John McCain didn't ask her these questions before he allowed the hard-line right-wing political operatives who control his party to impose her.

HRC is best used at firing up our own supporters, who are not wavering but who certainly need to vote in massive numbers for us to win.

I have a slightly different view.

It seems to me that the Obama campaign should wait a few days before doing any more with Palin than replying to incorrect attacks. In the immediate aftermath of her "rousing" speech and outright Obama attacks- as opposed to corrections-will be seen as beating up on a newcomer, something which Americans are programmed to resist

Just waiting a few days will let Palin's newcomer status wear off and she will increasingly be seen as fair game.

At this point HRC would be a valuable weapon. Particularly if she doesn't blunt the effect by
acting prematurely.

Unless Palin makes a misstep which embarrasses her supporters -- those "lower to middle income white men" (per desmoulins) -- the less said about her the better.

She's an icon of ressentiment -- a Clinton Sista Souljah moment as ondioline) points out -- and class resentment, if awakened, is death to Democratic hopes.

Don't go poking the bear!

Hillary is going after "her" base in the swing states that matter in this election: blue collar voters, swing and women. She *should not* get into an OVERT so-called cat fight and she doesn't need to. She needs to convince the no b.s. voters that Obama is their man. The "cat fight" is inferrred and everyone knows this. She can mention Palin in passing but everyone knows the deal.

I'm glad she's out there and soon Big Dog will be too...

I have to say that Bill C's endorsement during the convention was short and sweet. Just a few words, but he has a way with them. If he can repeat in a few more settings then we may have a chance.

And get Rendell out there.

Absolutely.

What's the difference between Sarah Palin and George Bush?

Lipstick.

The internet thing was a lie. The windsurfing episode was a baiting of the "anti-elite" narrative. It is on par with pointing out that McCain has trouble keeping track of how many houses he owns. It isn't "ridiculous" to own houses or windsurf. There is a difference with how this narrative works when played by the GOP and the Democrats. The GOP get to revel in anti-intellectual rhetoric that travels well across many economic conditions. The Democratic liberal tradition of challenging that chummy status quo leaves them to find other means of solidarity. The Democrats point to the elite as the very wealthy, and well they should. But when they go too far in working that element, they come under the charge of starting class warfare. Is there a double standard? Yes.

And it most certainly isn't ridiculous to lie about ones military history. That is a matter of being a fraud. Perhaps you will remember all the interest in GW Bush's military career in the Guard. There wasn't a smoking gun to prove that Bush had misrepresented himself. It would have gone badly for him if there was. The Democrats hadn't assembled a bunch of vets to bad mouth him.