Hillary Clinton is adopting a conventional strategy for defeating Donald Trump in the general election. It appears that her bid will be based on a series of orthodox approaches that have worked well for Democrats in the past but haven't been fully tested on Trump, the unpredictable, unorthodox billionaire from New York.

With Trump's victory in the Indiana Republican primary this week and Clinton's maintaining a commanding lead in nomination delegates even though she lost her own Democratic primary in Indiana, the final showdown has begun. "I'm really focused on moving into the general election," Clinton told MSNBC prior to the Indiana balloting. She said Trump "will literally say or do anything....He has given no indication that he understands the gravity of the responsibilities that go with being commander in chief."

Clinton says she won't get drawn into a negative cycle of charge and counter-charge, which is playing Trump's game. "She's too smart and too controlled," says a former Clinton aide. Instead, she will try to unsettle Trump by dismissing his claims. "She'll laugh at him," the former aide adds, hoping to goad him into one of his famous tirades.

It will be Clinton's supporters outside her formal campaign, such as pro-Clinton political action committees, who will do most of the attacking.

The Democratic National Committee is already firing powerful barrages. A DNC spokesman blasted Trump for "just spouting nonsense he reads on the Internet or in the tabloids." Dubbing him "Dangerous Donald," the DNC official said Trump "lacks the judgment and temperament to serve as president." Among the examples cited: Trump spreading a story from the National Enquirer claiming that Rafael Cruz, the father of Trump rival Ted Cruz, was pictured with Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy, handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963. Trump made the comment on Fox News Tuesday morning, and Ted Cruz said it was completely wrong. The DNC also listed a number of other Trump declarations that were proven false, such as questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, and claiming that thousands of American Muslims cheered when the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11.

Democratic strategists say their potential lines of attack have been evident for many months, but most of Trump's rivals in the GOP presidential campaign declined to use them aggressively, fearing a ferocious counter-assault from Trump, or were inept at going negative.

But now, Clinton strategists say, attacking Trump will be extremely effective because so many Americans have come to dislike him and are open to critiques. The Gallup poll this week found that Trump is strongly disliked by Democrats and independents. "Trump thus has a tough challenge ahead of him should he win the GOP nomination, given the evident antipathy he engenders among anyone who does not identify as a Republican," wrote Frank Newport, Gallup's editor in chief, in a memo to reporters.

Foremost, Clinton will attempt to scare voters into thinking Trump is a dangerous demagogue who has little understanding of the problems facing the country and how to solve them, and who is basing his campaign on appeals to the worst instincts of people, such as xenophobia, anger and resentment. "She's going to define him," and make it clear that he has been unfairly "branding people," without offering specific solutions to the country's problems, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and a Clinton supporter, on MSNBC.

For her part, Clinton told CNN recently, "I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get off the reservation in the way they behave or how they speak."

"Hillary set out a year ago to be a champion for everyday people and to help families finally start getting ahead again in this economy," Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, told the Washington Post. "That's what she's going to keep talking about in the general election....Trump, I'm sure, will try to bully and throw out insults. That's not going to derail her." This means she will continue to roll out specific policy positions, far more detailed than Trump's, on issues ranging from improving the health care system and making college more affordable to immigration and foreign policy.

And Clinton will continue to tether herself to President Barack Obama and his policies, which are popular among Democrats and many minorities whose votes Clinton is eager to maximize, as Obama did in his winning campaigns of 2008 and 2012. "We cannot let Barack Obama's legacy fall into Donald Trump's hands," Clinton said this week.

Clinton is also emphasizing the possibility that she could become the first female president, as she tries to rally women behind her and deepen Trump's schism with women voters.

Clinton will use traditional means such as massive television advertising to make her points and to undermine Trump. She also will try to dominate field organizing and micro-targeting of voters, where Trump has been weak. And she will try to exploit her party's geographic advantage. As Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post pointed out this week, if Clinton wins Florida and carries the District of Columbia and the 19 states that have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in each of the last six elections, she would become president. She is already ahead in several mega-states that Democrats usually carry, including California and New York.