The solution, at least in the short term, will be have top-tier female supporters vouch for Obama to largely female audiences and keep the candidate himself away.
Sebelius started on Thursday, linking Palin to the unpopular President Bush.
"She mastered the words written by the Bush speechwriters and delivered them well. But what we didn't hear was what people talk to me about every day," Sebelius told reporters.
Clinton, a one-time presidential front runner, was set to arrive Monday in Florida. Obama aides had long planned to have Clinton as a surrogate even before Palin was named.
Clinton's camp says the message will be honed on her long-standing appeal to kitchen-table issues that helped her win 18 million votes, but not the nomination. There are no plans for Clinton to directly engage Palin, largely because the election is about the president, not vice president.
Obama's senior advisers say they cannot allow Palin to paint herself as the come-from-nowhere insurgent — a role that once belonged to Obama.
"For someone who makes the point that she's not from Washington, she looked very much like she'd fit in very well there when you see how she brings these attacks, they all felt very familiar to Americans who are used to this kind of thing from Washington," Axelrod said.
Obama himself dodged the question about how to treat Palin, only the second woman nominated as a major party's vice presidential pick and the GOP's first.
"I think she's got a compelling story, but I assume that she wants to be treated the same way that guys want to be treated, which means that their records are under scrutiny," Obama told reporters in York. "I've been through this for 19 months. She has been through it — what — four days so far?"
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