In the South, women really know how to skewer the opposition, delicately yet lethally, says Karen O'Connor, director of the Center for Women and Politics at American University in Washington.

"They say, 'Ah don't mean to be ugly, but ...,' and then go on the attack in just about the sweetest, softest Southern accent you ever heard," said Ms. O'Connor, who spent 17 years at Emory University in Atlanta.

So far, though, she's not seeing that kind of response to Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin coming from women surrogates for the Democratic presidential nominee, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -- from New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on down.

And that puzzles her.

"The Obama people seem to be handling Sarah Palin with kid gloves, while Sarah Palin already has taken the gloves off, as we saw last week in her convention speech," Ms. O'Connor said. "There are only eight weeks left in this election, and Democrats need to come up with some sort of a device to go after Gov. Palin beyond just saying that this campaign is about the issues."

Yesterday in Florida, however, Mrs. Clinton seemed to eschew an attack-dog role, instead stressing the contrasts between Mr. Obama and his Republican rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain, for middle-class Americans concerned about health care, the economy, energy independence and other issues.

The only glint of the stiletto came when Mrs. Clinton, in Kissimmee, Fla., amended a line from her Democratic convention speech in Denver: "No way, no how, no McCain, no Palin."

It was the clearest preview yet of how the Obama campaign plans to respond to Ms. Palin -- whose choice as Mr. McCain's running mate appears to be a direct attempt to woo Mrs. Clinton's supporters.

While Mrs. Clinton -- as well as Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Govs. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Janet Napolitano of Arizona are on the campaign trail, they will stress issues above all, said Anita Dunn, a senior policy adviser for the Obama campaign.

"Ms. Palin is obviously a skilled performer and a talented politician," said Ms. Dunn, but the McCain/Palin ticket "doesn't have one policy that is different from George Bush on the big issues facing Americans, from the economy to Iraq to health care."

Ms. McCaskill did come out swinging on the day the GOP vice-presidential pick was announced -- calling Mr. McCain's choice a gimmick and a pander to religious conservatives, and questioning Ms. Palin's readiness to be president. But don't expect the same kind of sharp language from Mrs. Clinton.

Howard Wolfson, an aide to Mrs. Clinton, wrote Sunday in his blog, "The Flack," in The New Republic that questions about Mrs. Clinton's role "are fair, but what undergirds them is an obsession in our popular culture with the 'cat fight,' an offensive term that describes the spectacle of two well-known women fighting with one another."

Instead, he said, Mrs. Clinton will largely ignore Ms. Palin, because "running against Gov. Palin instead of Sen. McCain would be a mistake -- ultimately, voters will make their assessments based on the strength and weaknesses of the top of the tickets. If anything, Democrats should be talking about McCain-Bush, not McCain-Palin."

For now, the Obama campaign is playing it safe, trying to keep the focus on Mr. McCain. And that's as it should be, some feminists say.

"Part of this is a distraction from the fact that Barack Obama is running against John McCain, and not Sarah Palin," said Ellen Moran, executive director of Emily's List, which raises money for progressive women candidates.

Voters already know that, she said, noting that a poll of 800 women voters done last week for her organization by Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group found that 59 percent considered the Palin pick a "political" choice, compared with 29 percent for Mr. Obama's running mate, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Still, the Obama campaign may need to hit harder at Ms. Palin's record than it has so far, and use women to do it, Rutgers University political science professor Mary Segers said.

"There are plenty of attack dogs the Obama campaign can unleash, and maybe they should be unleashing a few -- sexism be damned," she said.

"A woman surrogate might be more effective than Biden, or even Obama himself," Ms. Segers added, "because you have two women, rather than a man and a woman, talking about issues -- and, presumably, about the merits of an argument -- without the distraction of gender or sexism."

Still, Republicans raised the sexism issue last week -- forcefully -- in response to media questions and tabloid reports about Ms. Palin's personal life.

"The Republican Party will not stand by while Sarah Palin is subjected to sexist attacks ... and, as women, I think all of us are sensitized and outraged when we see sexist treatment," former Hewlett-Packard CEO and current McCain adviser Carly Fiorina told reporters at the Republican convention.

It's still entirely possible that the Obama campaign will sharpen its attacks on Ms. Palin, a candidate who has demonstrated a broad, visceral appeal to conservatives and evangelicals, who had been less than enthusiastic about Mr. McCain, but who appear wildly enthusiastic about the gun-toting, moose-skinning mother of five.

"Having high-profile women surrogates has always been part of our game plan," added the Obama campaign's Ms. Dunn. "Our first rule coming out of the announcement of the choice of Sarah Palin has been, her personal life and family are off limits, but her public record, about which there are numerous questions, is fair game -- as it is with Joe Biden."