You can't make this stuff up. Mostly because you don't have to:
Since her selection as John McCain's running mate, the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband, and even her infant son, it was reported on Tuesday evening.
Part of this was a $50k spree at Saks and a mind-bottling 70 large at Neiman Marcus. To put this in perspective, she spent $150,000 on clothes and makeup in TWO MONTHS. Remember the John Edwards $400 haircut flap?
Listen, the mainstream media is (or will be soon) all over this. This is not the story. The story needs no underscoring, jokes or hyperbole. It is what it is.
The STORY is this:
How, now, can you be a candidate for office and a Republican and not immediately repudiate your party platform and, specifically, its national candidates? If you toe the line, you are finished. You can no longer defend this campaign. If you are a Repub and have a prayer of being elected still, you should be out in front (ahead of the Dems) slinging mud at this story and at your candidates.
And yet I see none.
It's almost impressive, the sense of "we will all go down together"-ness you see from the GOP. If I were a GOP candidate within five points still of my opponent (are there even any? No, really, are there?), I would be on every talking head show I could book to talk about my disgust with this situation. I would out attack the Dems, frankly, because it is getting to the point that the only way a GOP candidate has a prayer is to be MORE vicious with their attacks on the GOP than the Democratic challenger. And yet, I see none of them doing this. Clearly they do not realize the time for self-preservation is now, and the only way for the GOP brand to survive is to have at least SOME people in office, no matter who they have to sling mud at to get there. Even if the mudslinging is at Sarah Palin's pretty new Saks pantsuits.
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The angle I push - The money came from GOP donors during a recession. "Palin willing to Spread the Wealth to Her Wardrobe." Demand she pay it back immediately. She uses GOP donor money for clothes, and Alaskan taxpayer money to fly her family around and stay in top-notch hotels. But she is teflon.
The question isn't whether it will stick to her. Nothing does. But it will stick to other Republicans who will feel the sting from her shopping spree more than she will. She has nothing to lose. She goes back to Anchorage with her new wardrobe and fame and is still the sitting Governor. Other GOP candidates go home losers in the general election. How they, with so much more to lose, could not come out against this (by "this" I mean "anything, take your pick, there's so much") and try to save their own hides is either very impressive or amazingly stupid. I am pretty sure which it is.
If it doesn't stick to her, then why would it stick to down-ticket Republicans? People either care or they don't.
Actually it all sticks to her - she has awful favorability ratings now (some say despite her crowds - all base monkeys - she has went from a boon to anchor around McCain's neck).
And Incondite Pants is right - Drudge Report was happy to announce how much money Obama was throwing around at fundraising galas in Hollywood. Tit-for-tat.
What is more concerning for the GOP is what happens if McCain loses - because there is a healthy about of good partisan soldiers (Bennett, Limbaugh, Hannity, Kristol, Lowry, etc.) who see her as the future of the party propped up by the fundamentalism of the past.
Andrew Sullivan and other cognitive conservatives predict a schism and restructuring of the GOP. It will be interesting to see if Palin vanishes into a snowdrift or is reborn (born-again so to speak) in 2011.
And this all assumes Obama wins, cocky liberals.
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/22/heckuva-job-rnc/
Malkin has another in a long line of cringe moments when it comes to the lunkheadedness of the RNC. Tough to jibe the small town image with the fancy duds, huh. You betcha!
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