“The heels are on, the gloves are off,” Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin declared over the weekend as she launched pointed attacks against Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Palin, whose debate performance last week reinvigorated Republicans, seemed to embrace her new role as John McCain’s walking point as she levied criticism of Obama’s connections with Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the domestic terror group, Weather Underground:

“Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country,” Palin told a rally of about 10,000 gathered at a tennis stadium in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles.

That echoed comments she made earlier in the day to donors at a private airport in Englewood, Colo.: “Our opponent … is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

But according to the Christian Science Monitor, this new campaign strategy is leaving some conservatives uneasy, including New York Times columnist David Brooks, who doesn’t believe a negative campaign can be successful:

“They don’t understand how the same political tactics that they’ve used before, going after liberal, liberal, liberal, that’s not going to work now because something has overshadowed it,” Brooks [said on Face the Nation Sunday]. “And that overshadowing, that economic anxiety is just going to dominate the next five weeks. There’s no way around that. And if they’re not touching that, then they’re not touching the core issue. And John McCain has not done it. And he hasn’t done it over the weekend, where they’ve been attacking Obama for being too liberal or not loving America enough.”

What’s your take?