Sarah Palin and her "borrowed clothes" in Idaho - Just like on the VP trail? - Open Thread

When Sarah Palin campaigned for Vaughn Ward yesterday in Boise, Idaho, the airline lost her luggage. A great opportunity for folksy Sarah to get sympathy from the crowd:

"We flew through the night and this morning my luggage didn't arrive," she said. "So about an hour ago, I was sitting backstage in sweats and tennis shoes and man, this is just so me! I am in borrowed clothes. Again! Anyone followed the VP trail? Yup!"

See the video about her appearance from about 3:00 - the video also includes how she was "ambushed" by a reporter at the airport in Boise:



Just like on the VP trail?

We should take this opportunity to revisit the story from 2008 campaign about her infamous shopping spree. Our reader Finny found an video which was posted by Newsweek already in 2008, but didn't get the attention yet it truly deserves. It's a very detailed description of her "shopping raid". Sarah Palin had no hesitation to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of somebody else's money for her and her family and then needed 13 suitcases to carry all the clothes around:



Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of the former President, had harsh words for Sarah Palin's behavior - another video which didn't get the attention it deserves:



Note from Regina:

Patrick put this open thread together before taking a break to attend to some real life issues. He and Kathleen have worked very hard over the past few weeks and we're all grateful for it. But life is relentless and some things need attention, away from the blog. They should be back by Monday, May 31.

In the meantime, enjoy these two videos and I'll hold the fort the best I can...

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On a completely different note, please support Colour of Change petition:

John Stossel, a Fox News contributor and business anchor, said Thursday that a central piece of the Civil Rights Act should be repealed — the part that says businesses that serve the public can't discriminate on the basis of race.

GOP Senate candidate Rand Paul has made similar comments, but Stossel took things a step further and suggested we do away with legislation that ensures that segregation is outlawed in all areas of public life. Voters can opt against Rand Paul on Election Day, but Stossel's backwards and hateful ideas have the support of a supposed news network.

Please join us in holding Fox and News Corporation accountable, and demanding that they oust John Stossel.
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Discovery Channel’s advertisers laugh at "Sarah Palin’s vision of Alaska" - Open Thread - UPDATE!

By Kathleen

The Young Turks have reported that they have an inside source at Discovery Networks who was at the recent annual sales conference for all the buyers of ads across Discovery’s thirteen networks. The source revealed to them that the employees and the advertisement buyers, who put forward the money that finances shows, were “rolling their eyes snickering and even laughing” when presented with the promotion of Sarah Palin’s new documentary about Alaska. The advertisers said that Discovery had reached a "new all time low" with Sarah's show.

According to Young Turks' source, it seems that "no one took it seriously" and it does not appear that Discovery’s gamble on Sarah, as Fox have also discovered, will pay off quite the way they had anticipated. We’re going to say it: “We told you so”!

In addition, please also revisit Helen’s post on Palingates regarding the background of the Discovery deal: “Connecting the dots”.

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UPDATE:

Here is a video showing Sarah's speech at the Tea Party rally in Boston today. Wasilli Vanilli shows again that she is a demagogue par excellence, using her new "trademark" screechy voice.


(h/t Doot Diddy Doot)

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UPDATE 2:

Little did we know that there were very original and funny anti-Palin protestors at the Tea Party rally in Boston today! Our reader "austintxx" pointed us in the comments to this hilarious collection of pictures from today's event! Here are some examples - extremely well done, folks! Thanks a lot, we owe you!

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UPDATE 3:

Is Sarah Palin still wearing her campaign clothes? YOU BETCHA!

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Would you buy a used car from this woman?

(h/t so_many_unanswered_questions)

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Sarah Palin: all style, no substance

Sarah Palin's camp have commented on her campaign wardrobe, via Meg Stapleton:

"We are pleased to learn that all the purchases and decisions made by senior campaign staffers, and paid for by the RNC and returned to the RNC, were all done according to the law. The clothes in this campaign were treated just like the many stages upon which the Governor stood and the hundreds of lights used to illuminate them; all were used during the campaign and returned upon its conclusion. It is difficult to reconcile the obsessive reference to clothing on the campaign trail with any legitimate political issue and that leaves the unsettling conclusion that Governor Palin is the single national political figure who is critiqued on policy, family and clothing. When people start asking details about the personal effects of other candidates, then maybe the double standard will be eliminated."

Enquiries WERE made regarding Obama's campaign clothes:

Politico checked records for Barack Obama's campaign and the Democratic party: No similar fashion expenditures.

In the light of the CREW complaint outcome, is President Obama feeling shortchanged because he didn't order a few suits from London's Saville Row? Would Michelle Obama's words have sounded more earnest if she had been dressed in designer clothes?



How the RNC choose to spend their money is their business, but dressing Sarah Palin and her whole large, loving family in expensive clothes, having make-up artists and the best hairdressers couldn't mask the simple fact that they didn't have a message to deliver.

Carrie Prejean was artificially enhanced and looked reasonably good until she opened her mouth.

The same happened to Sarah Palin. She looked good and shiny, but had no substance.

Do the RNC really think that a political campaign should be conducted as a beauty pageant?

Was a well dressed Sarah Palin the best they could offer their donors and the voting public when the economy was imploding and people were losing their homes and jobs?

Very good post about Sarah's wardrobe
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Sarah Palin's wardrobe

Sarah Palin hit the jackpot!

The campaign wardrobe business has been cleared.

The Federal Election Commission today threw out a watchdog group's complaint against Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, the Republican National Committee, and several political operatives associated with the RNC, alleging that they improperly spent $150,000 on clothing for Palin and her family.

But the law has a loophole for money raised, not by individual candidates, but by political parties. The FEC ruled that the clothing purchases were permitted as coordinated party expenditures.

"This means that the FEC will allow political parties to buy candidates whatever they want at whatever cost, and that the candidates and their families may keep these purchases. Despite the fact that Governor Palin and the RNC claimed the clothing would be donated to charity, it is not clear this ever happened, and in any event, according to the FEC, the law does not require it. Notably, this past March the FEC asked Congress to enact legislation to extend the personal use prohibition to all political committees, including party committees and leadership PACs. Unsurprisingly, Congress has yet to act."

I emphasized the passage above. Sarah Palin must be a very happy bunny right now.

Clothesgate is no more.

Article on Boston.com
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Clothesgate

So, what happened to Sarah Palin's stylish campaign wardrobe? She claimed she had not asked for them, the only thing she ever asked for was a can of Dr Pepper (you can't wear that!) ,was going to wear her own more comfortable clothes, blah blah blah.

Then they were in the belly of the plane. That was before the GOP lawyers were sent to Wasilla to retrieve them. Sarah's father, Chuck Heath, said at the time: "She was just frantically ... trying to sort stuff out. That's the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for. Nothing goes right back to normal."

Palin's father said his daughter told him the only clothing or accessories she personally had purchased in the past four months was a pair of shoes. (The pair auctioned on ebay, I wonder?)

We expect the clothes went back to the Lower 48 with the GOP lawyers sometime in November. Mmmmm... How come she may have worn a campaign outfit when she went to Georgia in December to win the election for Senator Chamblis?

The last we saw of the famous clothes was that photo of a stuffed black trash bag (minus the Georgia lovely cream jacket, I expect). No hangers, no protective covers, nothing like that. Sarah is so removed from the idea of greed or passion for material possessions, that she thought nothing of stuffing all those expensive designer outfits in simple, straightforward trash bags. Bless her.

There was talk of giving them to charity or auctioning them, netting a truckload of money, then giving the money to charity. Selling them on ebay would be a good bet. Those shoes, with an original price tag of $80, fetched over $2,000 on ebay!

I'll repeat the initial question: what really happened to Sarah Palin's campaign wardrobe?.
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