georgia10 at Dailykos has a great piece about how, faced with public opposition on almost every issue, the GOP focuses its attacks on the personalities:

And oh, what masters of deflection Republicans have become. A debate about whether to invade Iraq becomes a debate about whether Joe Wilson's undercover CIA wife hooked him up with a sweet junket overseas. A debate on stem cell research becomes a debate about whether Michael J. Fox exaggerates his symptoms. A debate about the right to privacy becomes a debate about whether Terri's blinks were voluntary. A debate on Iraq policy becomes a debate about how mean people are to General Petraeus. A debate about health care becomes a full-blown investigation into the lifestyles of 12 year old Graeme Frost and 2 year old Bethany Wilkerson. A debate about curbing global climate change becomes a debate about how many compact fluorescent light bulbs Al Gore has in his house. A debate about the shameful level of poverty in this country becomes a debate about how much money John Edwards spent on a haircut. A debate about who's qualified to be president becomes a debate about who does or does not wear a lapel pin. A debate about executive accountability becomes a debate about whether Representative Stark hurt Mr. Bush's feelings.

Knowing that they cannot emerge victoriously out of a battle of ideas, Republicans latch on to individuals instead. Public figures and private citizens alike are fair game as the right-wing noise machine turns its cacophony-creating media apparatus in non-discriminating fashion upon any individual, any prey that can serve to distract even for one minute from the utter vapidity of the Republican platform today.

I think she has a point, though I think she also misunderstands why this works. Image almost always triumphs over issues. While some of of have no problems grasping abstract political ideas, for most people those ideas need to be connected to real, live people to make sense.

Here prescription for the Democrats to ignore the GOP noise machine is only half right. The other part is that Democrats have to connect their good ideas to people, and connect the GOP's bad ideas to people as well.