She's smart. She's experienced. She's worldly. Republican strategists worried about their party's future should take heed. ___ Successful candidates follow a simple fundamental rule: Define yourself before your opponent can define you. The Republican Party, which mustered a thumbs-up from only 38% of voters in last week's Bloomberg poll, sorely needs to brush up on the very rule it counsels in candidate-training sessions. To skeptics in search of a political home, the GOP's image has devolved into that of a minority collection of name-calling, "no"-saying, backward-looking, talk-show bullying cranks -- a definition gleefully perpetuated by Democratic pols. So next time...