I don't think the Obama campaign should take Sarah Palin lightly. They need to have a strategy in place. IMHO, she presents the last, great hurdle to an Obama presidency. If we neutralize Palin, I think Obama's got it secured.
The McCain campaign knows Palin is a political hot potato for the Democrats. There's enough people who like her just enough in swing states to create a potential problem. But you can't give her free reign to attack without a plan to undermine her credibility. In other words, she's a big, fat political target in some ways, but going after her directly may result in turning off those voters who don't particularly trust her for VP but like her.
My advice? After looking at the two alternatives, we need to choose door # 3 -- let the media do our work.
Here are two main options in dealing with Palin:
- Let her self-destruct on her own. She'll do her big speeches to the faithful but the discerning Independent or swing voter are and will continue to see through her shallow knowledge of the issues and "middle-class hockey mom" veneer.
Maybe that will work, but she's attacking Obama vociferously now. If the Dems let that stand, and let HER stand, the attacks become more believable for swing voters. We can't have another election where we stand back and take it, even it's from a superficially charming female candidate.
- Second alternative -- go after her like any other VP candidate making slurs against our candidate, and focus on the Alaskan secessionists, Troopergate, her love of oil companies, federal monies, lies, etc., etc.
This would be a normal course for a normal candidate. But McCain's playing with fire with Palin, and he knows it. He knows she's not qualified to be VP much less president, but she's got the ability, not unlike George W, to be a happy face on more of the same Bush policies.
If the Dems attack her directly, it looks like we take her seriously and are afraid of her. We actually help to embolden her and possibly create new supporters. But if we don't, she gets smooth sailing to say all the lies she wants up until Election Day, and she'll get more supporters for gaining that carte blanche as well.
My advice is a third alternative. Let the media take her down.
The media's already upset with McCain's about-face and diatribes against it, and his lies. And they already don't like Palin for shutting them out and not doing interviews -- but they do want her for the ratings.
Democrat surrogates and maybe even Biden or Obama should make that point. Let her talk to the media like any other candidate. Say it's undemocratic of a candidate for national office to expect no tough questions like Obama, McCain AND Hilary went through for two years. It would also endear Obama more to Hilary voters that Palin go through the same media cheesegrater that Hilary did. I know the sexist media coverage of Hilary is still a real sore-spot for her supporters -- and they are right.
Obama had nothing to do with that coverage. But he could accomplish two political goals here -- help bring peace to Hilary voters by acknowledging the very harsh treatment she received during the primaries, and declare that Palin should at least receive the same scrutiny he and Hilary both got on the trail for two years.
Maybe the DNC could start it's own Palin clock to her next extended interview with mainstream media. I would emphasize serious, non-partisan wonkish shows, too, like Meet the Press. Say something like no VP candidate in modern history has NOT appeared on that show -- if that's true. Force her to do a substantive political interview.
This way, Dems CAN be aggressive. We're not slinging the mud -- we just want balance. She deserves to go through the same media scrutiny as all other national candidates. There's no free ride, here. We can be as tough as we want on that point.
Either way we win -- if she ignores the media, leaners will wonder what she has to hide, undermining her credibility and mud-slinging against Obama. If she agrees to interviews, well, we know what happens there.
Whatever the Obama campaign decides to, it should decide soon. I think we ignore her at our peril.