This Just In: The RNC Spent More on Palin than You Made in the Three Years Before the Lay Off

They didn't exactly put it that way, but that's what it comes down to. 

It's getting kind of hard to keep track of all the numbers, but Politico seems to have done the math:

Salons and spas, including $350 at Escape Skin Care and Day Spa in New York, were the latest unusual expenses to appear in the Republican National Committee’s coordinated expenses account with the McCain-Palin campaign, according to November reports released late Thursday.

Overall, the RNC has reported spending a total of about $180,000 for clothes and various accessories for the family of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Federal Election Commission records show.

As Politico first reported in October, the bulk of that spending, about $150,000, was spent in early September on clothes for the Alaska governor and her family.

The RNC’s post-Election Day report documented another $30,000 at outlets that read like a suburban shopping directory.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, The Limited, Foot Locker, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Victoria’s Secret are all listed in between the expected payments for media buys, direct mail and polling.  (Politico)

Victoria's Secret?  We aren't even going to comment because the jokes just write themselves.

Major payments to big department stores and boutique clothing outlets also continued. Thousands of dollars in payments to Macy’s, Nieman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue — all major recipients of RNC cash in early September as Palin upgraded her wardrobe for the campaign — were made in October, too. (Politico)

And we worried that Palin might be lost and gone forever, or at least till 2010!

Memo to Republican staffers:  when she runs in 2010 do not---repeat NOT---let on to her that you have a credit card.

Interestingly, in the newest charges on campaign finance records, many of the people who initially footed the charges were campaign staffers, including Andrew Smith, Ms. Palin’s chief of staff, Christopher Edwards, who was in charge of advance for Ms. Palin, and Kristi Pulsfort, a member of the traveling press staff.

Mr. Smith apparently footed the bill for more than $3,000 in charges at Aldo (a shoe store chain), Bloomingdales and Macy’s, all in Orlando, as well as Home Optics, a glasses and contacts store in Chugiak, Alaska, about a half hour from Ms. Palin’s home in Wasilla.

A woman named Jeannie Etchart, who appears on the McCain campaign’s payroll, picked up the most in charges, totaling more than $14,000 from places like Banana Republic, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom.  (NYT)

As for Palin, what does she have to say about all this?

Repeated calls to her home and office in New York over the last month or so since her name first appeared in reports were not returned.  (New York Times)

Take it away, Memeorandum! 

Like Salon says, it ain't cheap to look like a real America if you're Sarah Palin.

Wonkette:

New spending reports reveal that that the RNC’s tab came to a princely $180,000, spent not only at high-end stores like Saks and Nieman Marcus but also crappy “regular people” stores like Foot Locker and Wal-Mart and Toys R Us. Jesus Christ. If you are going to let people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making you look fancy, do not let your designated shoppers to go fucking Foot Locker. That is just throwing good money after bad.

Nothing wrong with Foot Locker, according to us proles, but that ain't the point.  The POINT is that monies expended at Foot Locker and Wal-Mart and Toys R Us were not, could not, would not, have been expended on dressing Sarah Palin, the candidate, in the height of fashion.

So what did the money get spent for?  Inquiring donors want to know!  Or at least we would if we were so benighted as to be Republicans.

An RNC spokesman says that the accessories have been returned and will be distributed to various charities.  Aha!  But what about the clothes?  Whatever it was, the RNC claims that she has returned all the clothing.  (NYT)  Wait. All of it?  Even the stuff from Victoria's Secret?  Footlocker?  Target?

And how about whatever it was she bought at Toys R Us?  Did they rip the Polly Pockets and My Little Ponies from poor Piper's hands and the mid-range footwear off Todd's feet?  Come on, RNC; it's got to come out sooner or later. 

Sullivan snarks:

More evidence that the Wasilla whack-job was getting pretty Barbra by the end of the campaign....When you put it all together, we're talking about a woman who, if this carried on, would have an annual budget of something close to a $1 million for clothes and make-up alone. Some hockey mom. No wonder this beauty pageant contestant who once claimed she...onged to meet Ivana Trump, doesn't want to leave the stage (or go back to Alaska which she pretends to govern).

And it's all perfectly fine if your goal is to provide a bimbo hood ornament for horny old white male voters. Just please don't tell me any of this has anything to do with a serious political party.

He's right.  How you gonna keep 'em in Wasilla once they've seen NYC?

At Political Machine, David Knowles says:

[L]et's face it, this is one of the odder stories to come out of the campaign, one filled with charges and counter-charges, most of them made with RNC plastic at Sak's Fifth Avenue and Niemann Marcus. Plenty of controversy has arisen over who authorized the purchases, how involved Palin was, and whether or not she has returned all of the items. Image is everything in politics, and the reason this particular tale carried so much heft was that it seemed to directly contradict the image of Palin put forth by Republican handlers.

I don't know:  there's a risible innocence in Palin's reaction to getting access to some OH BOY!  FREE MONEY!!!, which was to spend spend spend like a drunken whaler. 

The Heretik has a picture showing that she's so worth it!

Alaskan Democrat Mudflats hasn't yet responded to the Mo' Money story, but has got the scoop on the new 2009 Palin calendar (because at $17.95, it's totally worth it).

Our gun-totin’ “Gover-Girl” has her very own 2009 calendar.  Soon to be gracing garage walls all over the Mat-Su Valley, and the southeastern United States.

And she's totin' a gun right on the cover, lookin' fresh-faced and photo shopped and not at all like the description of her given by Sir Baz's Oxford-educated film producing British father:  "like the madam of a second-rate frontier brothel in a third-rate Western."

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