There have been many arguments advanced by TPM readers for talking about Bristol Palin's teenage pregnancy.  Certainly, the juxtaposition of this pregnancy with Gov. Sarah Palin's strong abstinence-only position on sex education makes this a virtually irresistible story.

In this blog, however, I'd like to lay out my reasoning for why we should think in prophylactic terms about Bristol.

(No, you sickos, it's nothing like THAT.  Geesh.)

First, let me spell out what this is NOT.  This is NOT an expression of disdain for those who want to talk about Bristol.  I believe that Bristol's story is newsworthy, unfortunately, because of the fairly low standard that is applied to "newsworthy" these days.  Also, since Gov. Palin is so new to the national scene, her favorite brand of chewing gum would be a heavily-dissected topic.

This is also NOT an expression of fear.  The right-wing slime machine will churn out its most noxious poison in the last few weeks of this election, especially if John McCain is losing.  Those who have not reconciled themselves to this reality need to prepare for a lot of ads featuring the most incendiary works of Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger.  Expect to see some cratered buildings and B&W head shots of Tony Rezko thrown in, too.  So, we know that it's coming, and we know when it's coming.  Not talking about Bristol Palin won't change that.

Finally, this is NOT some plea to be better than the Republicans.  The best use of Bristol's story is to plug it in to the growing trail of anecdotal evidence that John McCain is a rash, intemperate hothead who lacks the judgment and statesmanship to be President.  In this case, the plug works like this:  If McCain knew about Bristol's pregnancy prior to naming her mother as his running mate, it blemishes McCain's judgment.  If McCain didn't know, it calls his leadership skills and love of "country first" into serious question.

So, what IS this blog?  It's what the title implies - an endorsement of using prophylaxis with Bristol Palin.  In this case, it's the argument that any attack on her directly opens a wide avenue of counter-attack - and with the race as it stands, the risk/reward ratio simply doesn't justify it.

Former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov has a distinctive playing style.  Rather than his predecessor (Bobby Fischer) and his successor (Garry Kasparov), Karpov wasn't known for flashy tactics and big attacks in his heyday.  Rather, his particular genius was finding any attacking prospect for his opponent.  He would then squash the idea - often, many moves before his opponent even realized the idea was there.  Having choked off all the counterplay, Karpov would then mercilessly exploit the only remaining avenues of active play - which, much more often that not, were completely in his favor.

Obama has steadily taken away every major avenue of attack from McCain.  Foreign policy?  McCain's been reduced to a slogan, "noun plus verb plus surge", with almost no overt help from Obama.  Domestic issues?  Again, McCain's been reduced to a slogan:  "drill here, drill now".  Meanwhile, his own words ("psychological benefit") are killing him on that front.  McCain must be dreading the moment that he has to talk about educational issues, Net neutrality or same-sex rights at a debate.  McCain's positions on these and other important issues aren't nuanced - they're nonexistent.

Management skills?  Obama's campaign has been drama-free since January 2007.  McCain's campaign, however, has had almost never-ending drama - and the conflicting stories about Palin's vetting coming out from various aides only promises - AHEM - more of the same.

Barack Obama is winning this campaign.  He's on the right side of history.  He's on the right side of basically every major issue facing our country.  He has strong favorability ratings, in large part because people believe he's running a positive campaign that is focusing on pocketbook issues.  He has a strong VP nominee in Joe Biden (himself twice a Presidential candidate) who obviously doesn't need to be hand-held on the trail.  (Note today that Obama is in Chicago, while Biden stumps in Florida.)

Flash back to the days before the New Hampshire Democratic primary.  This was, you may recall, one of the very few primaries that Obama delegate genius Jeff Berman didn't predict with ridiculous accuracy.  However, the polls in New Hampshire were in Obama's favor...right up until the time he said, "You're likable enough, Hillary."  Within 48 hours, Obama's polling lead turned into a Hillary Clinton victory - largely because female voters saw that remark and lined up behind Clinton due to the perceived slight. 

With that one remark - doubtlessly considered innocent by Obama at the time he made it - he managed to snatch defeat right out of the jaws of victory.

It is my contention that the reason you're seeing Obama and his campaign laying off some of the touchier issues around the Palin family is because of the lesson they learned about the double-edged sword of gender identity, particularly in this year's election season.  Obama's winning in just about every measure that counts in this election season.  There is absolutely no reason for him to hammer on anything that carries a risk of backlash from female voters, or any issue that opens a remotely reasonable line of attack from McCain.

Also, there is another lesson to be learned from the primary season.  When the Wright story broke, the Clinton camp wouldn't go anywhere near it.  (It was remarkable to me because it was the first time in the primary that they showed real message discipline.)  They didn't encourage or reproach anyone, and let the media run wild with it.  You saw a replay of the same strategy by the McCain camp when the Tennessee GOP ran some racially-charged ads.  Politically, the best thing McCain could do was just not comment.  So, that's what he did.

Obama is pursuing the wisest strategy on this now.  He has absolutely shut down his campaign from issuing any comment on the Palin drama.  He's even gone a step further and put every staffer on notice that the Palin children are not to be targeted.  Why?  The MSM - McCain's "base" - will do a far better job reinforcing that meme than Obama's camp or any liberal blogger ever could.  (Check out the East Coast papers today.  They're flogging the Bristol Palin story.)

Now, before you guys get too far into cheering Obama's moral fiber, remember that he is still a politician - and a damned good one at that.  He's also a pragmatist to the nth degree.  So, I believe Obama will do whatever he thinks he needs to do to win.  If he were tracking 6-8 points down in Gallup, everything would be on the table.  Why?  He would be losing - and the losing candidate must take risks to change the track of an election.  (Fortunately, we don't have to find out what Obama would really do if he were down close to double-digits.)

Notice that McCain's been doing this the entire election season - taking risks, that is.  Double-speak attacks, endorsing (via his silence) third-party smears, cracking jokes about the Corsi book, doing anything he can do to get his name in the news - all of these, and more, have been McCain's strategy. 

Now, though, he may be experiencing a little karma.  The GOP has the stage all to itself - except for Hurricane Gustav, which caused them to badly overreact and basically flush the first day of their convention.  Now, the cumulative cloud that is Sarah Palin's delayed vetting will hang over the convention, every new morsel of discovery killing their prime-time opportunities to drive home the messages they want to deliver.

Witness the GOP's reaction today to Obama's CNN interview where he briefly compared his constituencies to Palin's.  The Republicans put out a statement on that issue minutes after the interview comments.  It's not that the statement was very good (it wasn't).  But the real issue is that they are DYING to talk about Obama's experience.  They're DYING to talk about ANYTHING Obama.  They know they can't spend the next two months playing defense on Palin.  So, they take shots at Obama - no matter how tortured the logic, or how laughable the argument.  It's what Obama has forced them to do. 

His campaign has employed prophylactic thinking ever since Super Tuesday.  They want to make no big mistakes, squash the drama, take away the opponent's best lines of attack while maintaining a long-term plan to position yourself for victory. 

True, this method of insulating yourself against substantial attacks is not popular with many people.  It's boring, it's slow, it's hard to grasp at first blush - much like Karpov's best tournament games.  But Obama's results seem to provide powerful empirical evidence that it's very effective in the political arena. 

Obama's protecting himself from character recriminations while advancing only solid lines of attacks on major issues.  THAT'S how you protect yourself - and an election lead.  We should follow that example.