Sarah Palin couldn't field dress a moose for less than 50 grand.

For her the White House is the ultimate accessory.

Gee, a Republican "reformer" lands in an official position and immediately begins milking it for the perks. It's not even original. Maybe there's a little Wall Street in Wasilla after all.

All this talk of Palin's wardrobe cracks me up. But gee, no mention about how just ONE of Obama's Hawaii vacations costs more than 5 times as much as Palin's entire wardrobe.....

O K Butch, to make it easy for you, it is spelled T-A-X-P-A-Y-E-R...0 for Obama,$150,000.00 and counting for the Caribou Barbie. Love that moniker, Jack.

Kiss: T-A-X-P-A-Y-E-R-S didn't pay one dime of the $150,000.00.

KISS, what does "T-A-X-P-A-Y-E-R" have to do with RNC capaign outlays? I assume that was from private political donations.

The timing was just a little off. Every 4 years the GOP is supposed to pretend they're for the working man and woman. This time Joe Sixpack morphed into Joe the Plumber - but it's the same con. For a few short dreadful months the GOP set has to leave the mansions and take their limos out of the gated communities and actually pretend to give a damn about the Middle Class.
Suddenly everybody else is elitist - not them. That's the scam and it's worked well in the past.

This time they were just stupid and went to Neiman Marcus during the pretend time. Even some of the smarter conservatives saw this as a needless mistake. I mean Sarah would look hot in a hockey jersey. The one Republican leader who doesn't need help to look good and they run into help her. It's big time dumb. Why give the other side the ammunition? And of course Sarah was regulation dumb to deny the amounts when the report came from the GOP campaign.

But the true stupidity belongs to those who rush in to defend the GOP at every turn, when clearly, they are being duped and played by the elite of this country. For the GOP it'll be back to Neiman Marcus and, "See you in 4 years, suckers!"

Couple of things. First, did you see she showed up in jeans in North Carolina yesterday? Funny how it took a couple of days for that to happen. Did she have the outfit flown in from home? Or was it another RNC outlay?

Second, as to the Neiman Marcus return. What of the sales person's commission? Here's someone pulling *maybe* minimum wage, who counts on those commissions to make a living. If the items are returned, the commission goes away too. It's one of the biggest complaints of employees in high-end stores. If they return those clothes, will they make the sales person, who took some serious time to help out in this endeavor, whole?

Maybe? Are you implying that Neiman Marcus would pay less than minimum?

Didn't they say the plan all along was to give the clothes to charity the second the campaign was over? Now those charities will lose out. Wait, why am I being so cynical? Of course, the new plan must be to give the money from the returns to charity. I'm sorry. People this noble would never lie about helping out just to save themselves..... would they?

From Think Progress:
DailyKos notes this morning, that on the Senate floor in 1993, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) supported restrictions on the use of campaign funds for “inherently personal purposes,” specifically denouncing the use of such funds on “clothing purchases”:
MCCAIN: Madam President, the amendment before the Senate is a very simple one. It restricts the use of campaign funds for inherently personal purposes. The amendment would restrict individuals from using campaign funds for such things as home mortgage payments, clothing purchases … and vacations or other trips that are noncampaign in nature. … The use of campaign funds for items which most Americans would consider to be strictly personal reasons, in my view, erodes public confidence and erodes it significantly.

Are you implying that Neiman Marcus would pay less than minimum?

Could be straight commission.

Um, I haven't dug into the details here - but after the convention, all of John McCain's campaign spending has been paid for by taxpayer dollars. He got the $84 million presidential finance fund money, which meant that he committed to zero private fundraising.

There are exceptions - for legal and compliance fees ("GELAC" funds), and of course, the RNC can do party-building and GOTV activities. But not even the most generous reading of the law on that money would include wardrobe expenses for a candidate.

For that matter, wardrobe expenses are just flat-out illegal -- even with privately-fundraised campaign funds. I'm exceedingly annoyed by all the coverage of the Palin clothing story that's fashion-oriented, or "isn't that crazy!" funny coverage... the law is crystal clear: personal clothing cannot be purchased with campaign funds.

$150K, what's the big deal? Obama has spent more than $600 MILLION DOLLARS TO BUT AN ELECTION.

That's right, MikeC. From the days of McKinley to the present, the GOP has always been known for the frugality of its election campaigns, and has NEVER EVER EVER outspent the Democrats. The alternate universe of the GOP apologists marches on!

Wasn't the 150 Grand taken from the 700 billion bail-out? Hard for me to believe a repug would use his own money when there are taxpayers to be fleeced.

Ironically, this story is one of the best things that could have happened for the McCain-Palin ticket.

It diverts attention away from the real issues -- the spotlight has shifted to a pile of clothes rather than McCain and Palin's respective positions, ambitions, experiences and qualifications. Instead, its partisan sniping about irrelevance.

So what the RNC purchased a bunch of clothes. Sure, a bunch of them will be returned unworn because some staffer had an index card with Palin's measurements and bought a little of everything that might be necessary. Boring. That's how personal shoppers work. I'm actually becoming sympathetic to the amount because I believe Palin has a different standard she has to achieve, fashion-wise, than McCain, Obama or Biden. Lets face it; those guys need a dozen dress shirts and ties and can reuse the suits. Men's fashion, esp. suits, hasn't changed much in the past few years, and, for most of us, one good suit looks pretty much like another. One white, collared shirt looks pretty much like any other white collared shirt; especially when all you see are the fourteen square inches not covered by a jacket or tie.

Palin, on the other hand, is expected to have a "fresh" look at every appearance; otherwise, you'll have the E! style "So-n-so wore a similar outfit at last month's whatever; sneer sneer." Hell, I'm still laughing at the Thriller jacket she wore; and if she catches that much for a fitted red jacket ...

Aside from a few jokes, Clothingate does not move voters. Supporters will assume its campaigning, detractors will sneer, and, in the end, we all lose because attention has been diverted from issues that would affect voters.

You know how a novelist will throw in dozens of little touches besides the main action to tell the story? One such detail here would be the way McCain kept using rock songs without permission only to have the musicians demand he stop. It's not a huge issue but it does say something to me about the candidate's popularity.

I think Clothingate belongs in this area. It's part of the entire flawed "Shut up and look pretty" approach for Palin and that DID affect the voters.
Of course, the McCain campaign had few options. If they let Sarah talk openly to reporters,... well, you saw how that worked out. The real problem is her candidacy is a joke which is why so many conservatives embraced it. But it's not about being divisive now so I'll make a positive suggestion:
As long as she has the Thriller jacket I'd like to see her dance more. At least I could take that seriously.

If the RNC wants to blow $150k on Gov. Palin's wardrobe rather than helping some of these endangered Republicans win their Senate races, that's fine by me.