I am by no means a political strategist. Oftentimes, I'm sure the tacts I suggest are impractical because they can't be reconciled with the bullshit complexities that mire politics inside the beltway. So, take this with the grain of salt it deserves.
But if I were a Democratic operative, I'd tell the DNC, or MoveOn.org or George Soros or anyone who will listen to get off its ass and offer top dollar to whoever is pimping those pictures of Jack Abramoff (probably Abramoff himself) and President Bush to the tabloids.
Then I'd cut them all together into a commercial and run the fuckers on every major channel, non-stop, before and after the State of the Union, starting that day.
The reason is as simple as it is shrewd. Whenever those pictures come out--- and they will come out--- they are going to dominate the news cycle for days. Who the hell is going to want to talk about Health Savings Accounts after a half a dozen pictures surface of the President gladhanding the influence peddling felon invovled in numerous House of Representatives corruption scandals and possibly a gangland murder of a business partner? That's not even a rhetorical question.
Bush apologists will spend more time diffusing the fallout--first from the pictures themselves, then from the embarassment of being upstaged on the only day of the year he appears able to form complete sentences without drooling all over himself. Moreover, the Democratic Party can finally get a handle on branding the Abramoff scandal as pure Republican, one that goes all the way to the top and is rotten at the core.
At the very least, for the price of Bob Shrum's consulting fees and media planning commissions, the Democrats can finally start to look like a real opposition party.