I wouldn’t say “reasonable” myself - I get it. I know where it went. I find the idea of the RNC buying her clothing perfectly justifyable. I find it understandable instead of “how in the hell could you spend that much on clothes!” But I think it would have to be about half that much before it seemed a “reasonable” amount to me. Palin could wear the same outfit twice (and she probably does, but they’ve also likely overbought). She could have (or rather, her shoppers, because I don’t believe most of this was bought by her) bought some really cute jackets that would have been wonderfully appropriate at Nieman’s for $300 rather than $1300.
I will admit that I’ve never closely perused the clothing racks at FB. They wouldn’t have anything to fit me anyway, and I think most designer stuff is ugly as sin (especially the purses!) so I just head directly to the umbrella rack. But, on my way to the umbrella rack, I do pass by clothing racks and many things I see are decent. I can see how the inventory might be hit or miss though.
But she’s not going to spend hours rooting around anyway, her handlers, McCain’s people, are doing that for her.
It’s true that I’m probably projecting. I walk down Michigan Ave. all the time and pass by these places, and just assume that they have invisible alarms that will go off if I dared to walk in the door. BEEP BEEP DOESN’T BELONG HERE BEEP BEEP DOESN’T BELONG HERE BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEEP!!! I once walked into Marshall Fields and felt like the cops were going to swoop down on me any moment for being out of place.
:eek: See, that’s why I don’t belong. That’s an outrageous price for something as stupid as lipstick. There again though, I’m projecting because I don’t wear any makeup at all, and if there were a situation where I would need to, I still have makeup that I bought 20some years ago (in a fit of “maybe I should start wearing makeup” Buy a bunch. “Nah, wearing makeup sucks”) that does me just fine.
I certainly am, but maybe that’s just me.
Exactly.
According to Marc Ambinder, Republicans ARE upset.
And this line from the McCain campaign was priceless:
Yep, because how can you avoid the McCain campaign’s laserlike focus on “the important issues facing the country right now,” like Bill Ayers, or whether Obama’s a celebrity?
At least McCain’s shut up for awhile about how he used to be a POW.
I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet that the campaigns have tailors on staff in order to fix something that goes wrong with an outfit at the last minute (it’d look pretty weird to see someone go into the building of an event wearing one outfit, and then appear on stage wearing something else, I’m fairly certain that it takes a certain skill to patch something up and not make it look like its held together by bobby pins). You’d also want to have a staff tailor so that the cut of the various outfits was consistent. Seems to me that such a tailor would have a lot of “idle” time, punctuated by periods of extreme busy-ness. Having said tailors work on “off-the-rack” outfits could possibly smooth that out.
$150K would also buy a shitload of buttons/bumperstickers/yardsigns, and McCain has less than $90 million to spend, while Obama has raised almost double that in one month. Sure, its not a lot of money in comparison to what the campaign is spending, but when you consider that the campaign is seriously handicapped by a lack of funds, one has to ask if that was the wisest allocation of the money that they could make.
I’m going to be gracious and assume that Piper is holding her mother’s purse in this photo from Gawker (if you don’t like that site, the photo is everywhere). Otherwise I would have to assume that a seven year old girl has a $790 Louis Vuitton Montorgueil PM handbag, and that just can’t be correct.
Even if the purse does belong to her mother, and even if you believe that Ms. Palin (and her family) needed the $150000 to look professional on the campaign trail, do you really believe she needed an $800 purse, given the image she is trying to project?
To underscore the difference, there’s a cute video on this page, with a totally shallow but amusing interview with the Obama family about fashion. Michelle points out that the pants Barack is wearing are 10 years old, and that she’s wearing a $30.00 Gap dress.
It’s true that these stores don’t charge admission, but for me it would cost me something just to get in the door because I don’t live in a town with a Neiman’s or a Saks and I never have. Looking at their website now, there wasn’t a Saks in the entire state I lived in for the past few years (I note they don’t have any locations in Alaska, either), and the closest one to where I live now is about two hours away. So for me visiting a Saks would cost, at minimum, the gas for a four hour drive. Neiman Markus is the same story, except that their single location in my state is even further away. For many “Main Street” Americans, these are stores that they’ve never even seen in real life.
Sarah’s teaching her daughter those oh-so-important small town values, is she? 
I can’t believe I’m actually getting involved in this thread, but I feel compelled to point out that the comments on that Gawker photo indicate that the bag is probably fake.
I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the problem. She’s running to be Vice President of the United States. Of course they want her in the best fashions and the best accessories. Appearance matters; $150K is small potatoes as compared to the GOP’s entire campaign budget to address such an important thing. More people are looking at Sarah Palin than at any number of ads that cost a lot more than $150K.
What a stupid thing to complain about. It’s the GOP’s money.
Who’s actually complaining other than actual Republicans? (See RTFirefly’s link in post #103)
I think most liberals are absolutely delighted about this. Go Sarah!
A total aside here, but I cannot believe that Malia Obama is only ten years old. She looks fourteen and sounds that age or older. It’ll be neat to watch her grow up.
As for the $150,000 clothes bill–I think they probably could have bargain-hunted and saved money, but they probably didn’t really have time to scour the sales, you know? This doesn’t really bother me at all, and I’m a flaming liberal elitist.
According to this NYT story, if Sarah keeps the clothes, she will have to pay income tax on it.
One more choice quote:
Bolding mine.
Depends upon how you want to define that. McCain, after all, is running his campaign using government provided money ($84.1 million worth of taxpayers money, to be exact), so I’d say its reasonable to assume that at least a portion of the money he’s using came from the general public’s wallet. (Admittedly, its a lot lesss than NASA’s budget, but by fucking Og, why should they be the lone whipping boy of the electorate about “wasted government money”?)
Yeah, this got me too. She’ll need clothes to wear as VP, won’t she? Why would want to give up all this expensive, custom tailored stuff on Nov. 5? She can wear it until it tatters, frays, gets stained, etc. and THEN donate it to charity. Around 2016, if the press remembers this issue, the answer will be “Hey, it’s not ‘eventually’ yet!” meaning “It’s not absolute rags just yet.”
I got dibs on the buzzword for this newest scandal:
Shoppergate
And I just Googled for this tern, and got no results, so it’s MINE!
The money is given to the campaign to do with it what they want. If they choose to outfit Gov. Palin rather than running one more commercial on St. Louis TV, that’s their business. I don’t think it’s right to say that how they choose to spend the money should be approved.
'Cause my answer might be, “Don’t spend the principal!” 
But we do. Politicians are limited as to how they can spend campaign funds, and quite a number of them, IIRC have gotten in big trouble for not using it correctly. (Hookers and blow are certainly prohibited, even if you live in Nevada, I’m sure.)
Yeah, you’re right; I’m wrong.
But we’re both off on a tangent, as it was the RNC that paid for the clothes, not the campaign. I wonder what their donors think of this?
Sorry to do that to you–I missed that bit. Traditional Inuit dress is Barbie pink? Who knew they had access to those dyes up there? 
I think some women have a dress sense and others don’t. I don’t see much wrong with Palin’s (now that that outfit is explained), but I don’t see the need for that much money. I used to shop at Marshall Field etc and I have many nice things (make that had–they’re all out of fashion now) in my closet, but no way did I spend that much money on stuff like that. Frankly, I think she’s on the make to get whatever she can out of whatever “perks” she thinks she can finagle. If I were a Rep, I’d be ticked off that she’s wasting my donation to that extent. A few nice suits? You betcha. But not 150K’s worth. That’s messed up.