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 is no more? I think that depends on what offended you about it. The legality or audacity? In an economic crisis I find it extremely offensive for a candidate for public office, who purports to be "just regular folk"/"hockey mom" to accept her party spending $180,000.00 on clothes for herself and her family. I believe the gentleman who discovered he footed a good portion of the tally was offended as well.
ReplyDeleteOne point...if Sarah kept the clothes she may have another ethics issue on her hands. Since she did not hand over power of the governorship to the Lt. Governor while she was campaigning, she was still the Governor of Alaska. I believe she would at the very least have to declare those on her disclosure forms, and maybe even pay taxes on them because of the high dollar value..
ReplyDeleteIt's a minefield, eh?
ReplyDeleteOh, I left out "fiscal conservative" on why it is still "clothes gate". Funny how I keep forgetting Gino is a fiscal conservative.
ReplyDelete@FW you are correct, if Gino or any of her family members trot out those clothes, she is in big trouble. Not only un-enforced state ethics laws, state and federal tax laws but what we have known all along... she does not speak the truth.
winners and losers
ReplyDeletewinner..Sarah. She is already looking at the high fashion catalogs dreaming of what outfits she gets for 2012.
Loser .. Cindy McCain. She is totally pissed that the GOP did not pay for her god awful $300,000 dress at the convention and all the other outfits she bought for the campaign.
Regina, I was looking for an Arctic Cat snowsuit on the rack in your drawing, but couldn't find one!
ReplyDeleteIs that because she hasn't yet gotten her personal handpicked ethics investigator to throw out the ethics complaint associated with that?
(meow)
Ah, but clothing-gate will reverberate for the foreseeable future. Dumb Sarah won't outlive it.
ReplyDeleteWhatever, this is why I've never donated money to any political party. IMO I believe that every candidate should run with set budget provided by the State or the USA, depending on which office one is running for. Elections are bought and sold based on individual's donations and I've never been willing to spend my dollars to help anyone achieve elected office. Democracy is based on the voice of the people and not the wallets of the people and this is just another fine example of how political donations are spent.
ReplyDeletepalinoscopy said...
ReplyDeleteAh, but clothing-gate will reverberate for the foreseeable future. Dumb Sarah won't outlive it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I hope so!
Well, for sure she should have to claim the value on her taxes if she indeed kept them. If she were smart (hee hee) she will make sure she does not appear anywhere wearing them. She is under a microscope now..............
ReplyDeleteLove the graphic, but augghhh! The pageant banner shows SP as Miss Alaska! She was Miss Wasilla, but only Miss First-Runner-Up in the state strut-off. Ah well, it's probably fitting: the truth doesn't mean much to her.
ReplyDeleteWV: parentr! (Aughh!)
palinoscopy said...
ReplyDeleteAh, but clothing-gate will reverberate for the foreseeable future. Dumb Sarah won't outlive it.
*****
totally agree, as it is a smoking gun, from a moral standpoint.
I also believe that if she keeps the clothes and reports their "value" on her 2009 tax return (which would be legit as the FEC decision was in 2009) I think she'd be in the clear from a legal viewpoint.
Thank you, Regina, for this post and the wonderful "Sarah Palin: all style, no substance" and "Sarah Palin's amazing pregnancy" posts.
19 May 2009 21:59
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
Cindy McCain...$300,000 dress
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Factually, the $300,000 was the cost not only of her dress, but the larger monetary expenditure for the jewelry she wore.
Just being fair, which is more than Palin could ever comprehend.
Look at how she dresses when left to her choice. She needed those clothes to make her look good enough to cover for her lack of anything else.
ReplyDeleteI am amazingly bewildered by Teflon Palin who continues to benefit from whatever appears to be unethical,immoral, or illegal. What amazes me is that she really has not suffered any consequences as a result of her questionable behaviors.
ReplyDeleteIn this case--she can take those clothes out of the closet now. What a shame--and a sham--that those clothes were not donated to charity. What was that lie all about GOP? The whole situation on many levels is quite perplexing and very distasteful-to say the least.
Well, either way - I hope the IRS made sure the $180,000 in gifts showed up on her last income tax returns she filed last month...
ReplyDeleteI agree with you fully, AKpetmom: We should revisit the way people run for office - it should be completely financed by the government only - like that, no lobbyists could get their slimey hands on our politicians, and also, once the people have been elected, they do not have to immediately start fund raising for their re-election!
"well I do declare, look what I found...I just knew these garbage bags full of designer clothes were somewhere...when I turned in that one puny little bag to the RNC, I told them the rest were somewhere but I just could not find them...but wouldn't you know, here they are"
ReplyDeleteAll this means, is that it will be much, much harder for campaigns to get contributions once people discover where their campaign dollars really go. $20,000/month stylists? I don't think so.