Democrats respond to Palin, gently and not-so gently

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff

ST. PAUL -- With a new national media sensation on their hands, Democrats are trying to figure out how to handle Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

The Alaska governor used her closely watched speech Wednesday night not only to defend herself against criticisms of her qualifications and experience, but to go after Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

Obama's campaign this morning arranged for a conference call on which two prominent Democratic women attacked the Alaska governor as a fringe politician who is unprepared to be in the White House.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, who reportedly was on Obama's short list for running mate, told reporters that Palin is "on the radical fringe of the Republican party" on abortion, a reference to Palin's opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest. That is a stronger anti-abortion stance than held by John McCain, who would allow for exceptions in those cases.

Sebelius, while complimenting Palin's delivery of her speech Wednesday night, said Palin failed to spell out specifics on issues of concern to women, such as how the Republicans would help the uninsured get health care.

"We're proud of the fact that she delivered her lines very well," Sebelius said. But she said the solutions desired by women voters are in the agenda of Barack Obama and Joe Biden., Palin "doesn’t have solutions to any of the issues that are front and center" among working families, Sebelius said.

US Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who also participated in the conference call, said Palin's lack of foreign policy experience was "frightening. Really, what if something happens to John McCain?"

Obama's running mate, Senator Joe Biden, making the rounds of the morning news shows chose the tack of praising Palin's presentation and even allowing that she might have faced some sexism -- but of asserting that her speech was substance-free.

"I didn't hear the phrase 'middle class' mentioned, I didn't hear a word about healthcare. I didn't hear a single word about what we're going to do about the housing crisis, college education, all the things that the middle class is being burdened by now," Biden said on "The Early Show" on CBS.

"There was a deafening silence about the hole that the Republicans have dug us into and any specific answers as to how the McCain-Palin ticket is going to get us out of that hole," Biden added.

A spokesman for Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, however, used the s-word to describe Palin, who went after his boss by name.

"Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the current do-nothing Senate, not long ago summed up his feelings about our nominee," she said. He said, quote, 'I can't stand John McCain.' Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps no accolade we hear this week is better proof that we've chosen the right man. Clearly what the Majority Leader was driving at is that he can't stand up to John McCain. That is only one more reason to take the maverick of the Senate and put him in the White House."

That brought this response from Jim Manley, Reid's press secretary: "Anyone who knows Senator Reid knows he never backs down when he's fighting for what's right and that he always stands up to John McCain when he is wrong," Jim Manley told CNN. "Shrill and sarcastic political attacks may fire up the Republican base, but they don't change the fact that a McCain-Palin administration would mean four more years of failed bush-Cheney policies."

Hillary Clinton's supporters were incensed when she was described as "shrill" during the Democratic primaries.