LAST WEEK proved that Sarah Palin has no intention of going away anytime soon. She appeared on the Today show twice, On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteran, and Larry King Live. She’s still being ribbed on Saturday Night Live and in editorial cartoons. Google News is still packed daily with stories about her every move. Every book publisher on the planet is after her (word on the street is that her deal might be bigger than Hillary’s). She’s also continued stumping, holding a press conference in which she kept right on talking about Joe the Plumber. Palin dismisses the notion that she’s already running the next race, but her party doesn’t—most conservatives are speaking of her 2012 run as, for better or worse, a matter as settled as Obama’s victory.

On that prospect, the conservative world is divided into (more or less) three constituencies: 1) those who like Palin just the way she is; 2) those who think she has potential if she tones herself down and works hard in the meantime; and 3) those who don’t want her touching the conservative banner with a ten-foot pole. And the next round of questions is even more fragmenting: is Palin only a star because she was so “you betcha”? Does she want to adjust her image into something more refined? Did the last months of the campaign do irreparable damage to the nation’s conception of her?

Liberal women are generally offended by the notion that Palin is Hillary Clinton’s equal, or even cut from a cloth sold on the same rack. Palin is no Hillary when it comes to the former First Lady’s incredible political discipline, her mastery of policy, and her network of power players in Washington. But the 2008 campaign left Palin in position much like (albeit considerably less extreme than) the one Clinton faced when her husband left office: a deep cultural impression she desperately needed to shake. Sure, Palin left a positive impression on her base, but must face the fact that she was the laughingstock of everyone else—from the cast of SNL to lots of generally conservative thinkers. And if you’re going to win the presidency, you need some of those people to vote for you.

So here are the pages Sarah should steal from Hillary’s playbook:

Listen. Over a year remained in her husband’s administration when Hillary began positioning herself for the presidency. The state of New York might not have been disinclined to elect a liberal Democrat as their senator, but Hillary had to prove she had their state—and not just her well-known political ambition—at heart. She accomplished that with a “listening tour” across the state, widely credited with quieting New Yorkers’ suspicions and taking the edge off her sharp personal image.

Like Clinton, Palin seems to be more of a teller than a listener. She’s supremely confident in her own opinions, sometimes to the point of absurdity, and has Hillary’s same hard-shell, make-it-happen political demeanor. But Hillary, who was never good at flesh-pressing and small talk, forced herself to become competent in numerous areas outside her comfort zone. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine the Hillary Clinton of the 1990s nearly beating a silver-tongued natural like Barack Obama. Similarly, Sarah Palin has work to do outside adoring crowds in red states. For the next four years, she should consult, interact with, and be seen with every smart person she can. She should attend summits and conferences. Only part of that is for show—the rest of the time, she should be doing a lot of listening and lot of studying. Really listening, and, like Hillary did in New York, basing her positions on real problems, not bogeymen.

Keep it local. Hillary was probably ready to run for president in 2004, but shrewdly waited until she—who had by then been in the national spotlight far longer than Sarah Palin—had enough “experience” on her record. (Those nosy reporters always ask.) Hillary’s patience had another effect: it convinced voters, especially New Yorkers, that she was a hardworking, populist politician who wasn’t too busy with her national ambitions to fight for them in Congress. That narrative played well in her 2008 campaign, when her detailed policy record dwarfed Obama’s in their debates. (During some earlier moments, he looked like the shallow celebrity attempting to waltz in and steal the prize from the one who had actually earned it.)

If we consider this her “2000,” Palin has plenty of work to do in Alaska to keep her busy for the next eight years. She has to re-ingratiate herself with her constituents, some of whom are displeased with the way the campaign went. Her much-discussed natural gas pipeline remains a sticky policy controversy in which Palin can demonstrate bipartisan leadership. Alaska’s dropout rate is a catastrophic double the national average. Local accomplishments don’t lie; if you’re an effective, loyal governor, then chances are you might be a decent president.

Admit negatives. Last year, Hillary made an almost superhuman effort to adjust her persona—her tones of voice, body language, and even her laugh—so that suspicious voters would stop seeing them as negatives. Palin doesn’t have those problems: people tend to like her up close, her accent is evening out, and she’s sounding better on the stump all the time. But a serious look at the Sarah Palin Shtick raises doubts as to whether that manner can ever win over a majority of the country. Her pronunciations sometimes sound countrified and unintelligent, her tone too glib, and her attitude with interviewers icily defensive. Fortunately for her, none of those are difficult to fix—as long as she admits they need to be fixed. Like Hillary learned to reign in her aggressive speaking style and reedy voice, Palin should realize her homespun folksiness should give way to a calm, commanding gravitas when the moment requires. She has a gift for inspiring voters, and it would be a shame to see her undone by her own habits.