Another explained that Democrats expected Palin to "have the opposite effect" and drag McCain down, adding: "Whenever there is conventional wisdom in Washington and it's wrong, that shakes people up."
The two Democrats, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity in order to speak about internal campaign strategy.
Obama over the last two days has begun vigorously attacking Palin for decisions she made as governor and has tried to tarnish her image as a political maverick and reformer, highlighting, for example, her initial support for the "bridge to nowhere."
One new TV ad released this week accuses Palin of lying in claiming to have killed the $398-million link between Ketchikan and its island airport. McCain has ridiculed the project as an egregious example of the kind of pork-barrel spending he has long fought.
Palin has made her opposition to the federally funded bridge a staple of her stump speech, even though she defended it in her 2006 campaign and did not kill it until it was clear that Congress would not pay for it.
Also, Obama and his aides have started using increasingly aggressive language in recent days to denounce Palin's and McCain's attempts to cast themselves as harbingers of change.
The typically even-keeled Obama on Tuesday night invoked an old cliche and accused Republicans of trying to put "lipstick on a pig" in their adoption of the change mantra, noting that not long ago McCain had tried to present himself as the candidate of experience.
Republicans seized on the comment and tried to portray it as a sexist allusion to Palin, who in her convention speech said that the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull was lipstick.
Obama aides waved off the attacks as a "pathetic attempt to play the gender card."
It was not clear late Tuesday whether the lipstick spat would garner much attention, but the exchange demonstrated the challenges facing Obama as the McCain camp tries to squeeze every possible advantage out of the Palin candidacy.
Some Democrats are eager for Obama to be even harder on Palin.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that independent voters' enthusiasm for Palin will fade when her conservative record is better known. "They need to get that information out, and they need to get it out quickly," he said.
