Hilary Rosen's CNN commentary today provides an excellent demonstration of exactly what's wrong with the more personal lines of attack against the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

More importantly, though, she outlines what I strongly feel is the best way to debunk "the myth of a maverick", as John Kerry so eloquently put it, while simultaneously shining a harsh spolight on the far-right ideology that Palin embraces.

First, Rosen lays out the idea, through a personal lens, that attacking Palin's personal and family choices may resonate in a way that Democrats could end up regretting.  (All subsequent emphases mine.)

I am a woman who someone took a chance on several years ago when they gave me a job that had only previously been done by old white guys. Experience? How do you get any if no one takes a chance on you? And the decision to take a chance can be instinctive, as John McCain said...My grandmother always said, "You can't tell time on someone else's clock." Judgments about people's personal lives are better left unsaid and unrealized.

Many articles (here and elsewhere) stop at this point, having made the larger case that there's a fine line between tough questioning and bullying.  My thinking is that you only cross that line if you're losing.  So, if you're winning an election, why flirt with that line at all?

Rosen continues, though, by targeting the many issue-based reasons to go after McCain/Palin, starting with a succinct statement that would allow the Democrats to remain on their main "more of the same" line of attack.

So why then do I think that Sarah Palin would be a terrible vice president? Because I also think that John McCain would be a terrible president.

I don't care about how Sarah Palin or John McCain take care of their families. I care about how their policy choices affect my family and millions of other Americans.

Nail, meet head.  The Democrats have been running on election issues, judgment and temperament since Obama locked up the nomination.  As tempting as it is to jump on the fresh meat who waded into the election this week, we have to think long-term. 

There is room to hit Palin on personal issues, hypocrisy and inexperience.  That doesn't mean it's a good political idea.

Rosen outlines drastic differences with the Republicans on the issues of health care, educational support, energy policy, Washington reform, economic policy, social issues, and change. 

While all the points are excellent, the one on change bears repeating above the others.

McCain and Palin now say their campaign is about change, too. Yet the only real change they have proposed is a change from a suit to a skirt in the vice president's office and one man fighting a misplaced war for another in the Oval Office.

And there it is.  Palin equals Romney equals Huckabee equals Thompson.  Republican blowhards all, and none with any idea of how to get us out of Iraq, out of $400 billion annual deficits, out of recession, or out of a Social Security hole that stands at $53 billion and climbing.  Call her out on THAT.  Todd, Bristol, Trig, whoever else - don't let her family serve as shield and sword.  Ignore them, and aim directly between those rimless librarian glasses.

You know the difference between Dick Cheney and a hockey mom?  Lipstick.  Don't let voters forget it between now and November.