Obama leans on Clinton to beat Palin

SENATOR Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Governor Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Hillary Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said.

Clinton’s campaign event in Florida, her first for Obama since the Democratic convention, will serve as a counterpoint to the attacks and energy that Palin brought in her convention speech on Wednesday, Obama aides said.

With the McCain-Palin team courting undecided female voters, including some who backed Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Obama aides said they were counting on Clinton and Democratic female governors to rebut Palin — and, by extension, McCain. Those governors include Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.