A medicinal regimen for Palin

The Fix caught up with Republican operatives over the weekend, who prescribed four drugs (easy, chewable ones) for Sarah Palin to rehabilitate her image among independents and Democrats who don't like her, and the 51% of Republicans who don't think she has the skill necessary to be an effective President.

1. Avoid the (Spot) Light

The more Palin makes herself and her family fodder for the tabloids, the less seriously she will be taken as a politician.

2. Bone up on Policy

Palin is not now and will never be the candidacy of the policy heavyweights in the Republican party but she also can't be taken seriously on the national stage if she spends her time commenting on Miss California rather than the future of energy policy in this country.

3. Campaign with Purpose

4. Slow and Steady

"You can't build these credentials overnight," said one senior Republican consultant. "She needs to keep focused on changing perceptions over several years not months."

The last point is particularly important and rarely mentioned. If Palin is planning on unleashing herself as promised in her Twitters, she'll -- once again -- have inserted herself into the conversation without having anything substantive to say.

There's no rush to learn something new. You can learn a lot about chemistry in one good 16 week class. Palin's advisers should put her on a kind of 16 week class program, where she tackles one major area of political policy at a time. Imagine how fluent she could become on the economy and foreign policy in just 32 weeks (yes, that sounds like the world's nerdiest infomercial).

This will be an especially difficult discipline for Palin to maintain with the lure of high-paying speaking gigs and cameras at her beck and call.

But if she can do it, she'll have proven not just that she can learn, but also that she can double-down and do so when her instincts tell her otherwise.