Has Palin actually donated any of those clothes to charity yet?

did she say she was going to?

Yup.. For some reason they thought they could get get out of the scandal by donating her wardrobe to a charity. Like the homeless need 2000$ boots.

Apparently, the number was closer to 200,000. And of course she hasn’t donated them- she never intended to. They’ll make great hand-me-downs for Pigstuck Palin Johnston or whateverthefuck they name the baby.

ETA: pictures of the concerned parties

Tonedef beat me to it!

I was just reading about how it was way more than initially reported AND it wasn’t just for her—she went shopping for her whole family. There are all sorts of articles on Palin-McCain sniping going on right now.

I think rather than giving $2K boots to a homeless person, that IF THEY DONATE the clothes (a big if), a better use would be to auction them for charity. It would bring in money from people who want to wear Palin’s old rags and that money could buy many more boots for homeless folks than hoping they can find just one person in Palin’s size.

Newsweek will have an interesting story on this in a couple days – they’ve been sitting on some info until after the election.

I know that the boots were a small part of it. Part of me says all the loot is on its way back to Alaska. Which seems fitting considering the Ted Stevens thing.

I’m so excited about that Newsweek story. It’s got tons of into and not just on this. I can’t wait.

Though my heart broke a little bit when I read Michelle Obama’s comments on the McCain campaign’s later, hate inspiring rallies.

Who cares? She’ll fade into obsolescence soon enough.

OK…just to throw a different thought into this thread….

Why should she give them away, exactly? And honestly, I don’t see what all of the flap was about in the first place.

taking cover

Long post sorry, this is too good not to share:
_____________________
Newsweek has been working on a Special Election Edition that will come out on Thursday – they’ve been working on it since the beginning of the campaigns. They promised not to reveal certain behind the scenes things until after the election was over. Here are a few goodies:

From Newsweek’s Special Election Project comes the real Sarah Palin. She met staff members in a towel:

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys’ club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.

She raised William Ayers before the campaign signed off on it:

Palin launched her attack on Obama’s association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain’s advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

And she spent far more on clothes than was reported:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Finally, Steve Schmidt (who reportedly picked Palin as VP) would not let her speak on election night.

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

@Pup. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

Dave, you’re the best. That was so juicy I think I need a towel.

I read that article yesterday. I love the Wasilla hillibies quote. Mean, but funny.
@laureth The auction idea is brilliant!

i am not looking for an argument in any way, but if her clothing was on the order of say, consignment shops and her family wore jeans and flannet shirts (or whatever they wear up there in alaska) then they would look very bad as a whole coming out to the nation dressed shabbily. for this woman to be presented to the nation and campaigning every day, she would have to look professional and put together or else she would be further the laughing stock then she was already. you couldn’t have her wearing the same suit every third day – come on now. you could buy a man a few dark suits and just change up the shirts and ties but it’s not that easy with a woman’s wardrobe. you couldn’t have the kids coming out in walmart clothes, and people saying “I have the same dress and it cost $20” – they would all have to look good. period. i am an obama supporter but i am just pointing out the other side of this arguement. please don’t jump on me for pointing this out -it’s just a reality.

PupnTaco – I was going to post the same thing, I read that last night…that Wasilla Hillbillies line is priceless.

But why it’s important, I have two trains of thought here. One was, by all means, spend ALL your campaign cash on Palin…I certainly didn’t object to getting hate filled robocalls or fliers telling me how scary Obama was because I didn’t buy the argument and that was less cash they had to spend on finding someone who would. But in all seriousness, I was not too concerned about 2008, I had faith in Obama’s ability to win this thing and the polls just did not show any signs that McCain could pull off an upset.

But let’s look at what’s going on right now. From what I can tell, Begich could still win the Alaska Senate race because of some 40,000 ballots that remain uncounted, even though the official tally is 1% (and supposedly those are likely to be good for Begich). But if Ted Stevens wins, he will either resign or be forced out, and it will be up to the Governor of Alaska (Palin) to appoint his successor. Many think if that happens, she will appoint herself. After all, she’d then have 4 years in the Senate come 2012, same as Obama had when he won.

Palin clearly has dilusions of grandeur, she was plucked out of near obscurity and suddenly felt it was her right to ascend to the second highest office in the land, understandable when you see that people are already shouting Palin 2012! In fact, on election night when asked about a 2012 run for President and she said that she wasn’t thinking that far ahead and wanted to be out of the limelight for a while, but that she WAS speaking out of disappointment over a result she did not want and DID NOT EXPECT. Usually when candidates are about to get their asses handed to them they aren’t shocked when they lose, she was clearly shocked as evidienced by this statement and by her expression during McCain’s speech.

So, why is that important then? Well, it’s just another sign of her hubris. She has basically ascended to where she is because of the corruption of her predecessor, she has governed with a sense of entitlement (she didn’t give that money back for the bridge to nowhere when the project was killed). She has no problem taking oil revenues and giving them to her constituents and acting like their low tax rates are because of her fiscal responsibility. It’s important because one faction of the Republican party is head over heels in love with her, and they are GOING to try to force her down our throats as a Presidential candidate. And the electorate is fickle. 60% say she’s not ready, but if she has 4 years in the Senate, in my opinion that doesn’t make her nearly as qualified or ready as Obama in that Obama has 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor and 8 years as a state legislator and 3 years as a community organizer…I don’t think mayor of a small town, follwed by Governor of a small state, matches the non-Senatorial experience. And there are other issues as well…Obama has lived in other countries, he’s well versed in world matters. And one of the big revealations that will be talked about in this Newsweek article as I understand it is that Fox News (who was on her side) complained that she didn’t even realize that Africa is a Continent (not a country). Like Ron White says, “you can’t fix stupid.”

And we see this as part of a pattern, with her taking her family along with her everywhere on the government dime. She has this sense not just of entitlement, but of really being better than others it would seem. If she wants to fire a state trooper for personal reasons, she’ll instruct someone to do it, and if they don’t do it, she’ll fire them…not illegal, she’s the governor, but unethical. If she doesn’t like the results of an ethics investigation, she’ll just say that verdict is meaningless and call for her own investigation that clears her. If the McCain campaign tells her not to say something or wants to coach her, if she doesn’t feel like it, she’ll go off half cocked. She is the type of person, and this clothing thing just illustrates it, who feels like she follows God’s will, so anything she decides to do must be righteous and acceptable, no matter how stupid or shortsighted it might be. If she wants a quarter million in clothes for hereself and her husband, and there are donor willing to buy her outfits, well, a pitbull needs a LOT of lipstick.

Basically, the clothing thing I think is a big deal because it demonstrates a number of things about her character.

1) A lack of ethics
2) An unwarranted sense of entitlement
3) A disconnect between the real world lived by her constituents and the life she wants to lead
4) A lack of integrity
5) A stubborn will
6) An immature attitude
7) An unfettered ambition

So, if she wants to play dress up and the campaign is fine with spending their money that way, fine…it will help them lose. But if she’s going to get what she wants no matter who she has to take it from or how she has to get it, well that means she’s unfit to lead this country, not now, not in 2012, not ever.

This election may be over, but we need to make sure that people know, regardless of their ideology, that this woman is not the salvation of the Republican party. She is a dangerous, self serviing ideogogue who will do nothing to make the Republican party once again the party of fiscal responsibility and social moderation…she will continue to push for borrow and spend government where it meets her desires, and will want to enforce her highly conservative social views on the country. These clothes are just one more indicator of that, and any serious Republicans who really want to get back to being a sane, viable political force, are going to have to decide what to embrace…either the far right wing Evangelicals or the more centrist fiscal conservatives. If I were a Republican, I’d argue that we’ve gone the former direction too many times for it to work again, we need to get back to our roots. But there are huge numbers of very vocal and very well financed Republicans for whom Palin is the future of the party. If that’s what you want, then perhaps you can forgive these character flaws as just natural human ambition, but be prepared to lose more elections.

I however as a liberal, care because to me, this is an indicator that she is part of the same mindset that put Bush in office for two terms.

And and as jca pointed out just now, there is going to be an expectation she would look good, and there is a double standard for women. But there’s a difference between saying she could have pulled off that professional look she needed for $20, but two arguments I’ll list here…one is, she IS already the Governor of Alaska, she DOES need to look good and official for that job as well, she SHOULD already have some professional attire. Second would be that she should, on her budget be able to purchase some items to fill out her wardrobe. That having been said, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say, let’s have the campaign pay for some new clothes and a stylist, but a quarter million dollars, a fifth of which is spent on your spouse? There’s something between $20 and over $200k. Having your campaign’s biggest expenditure be your VP’s stylist for the month, yeah…that might be excessive. Not jumping on you jca, agreeing with you in fact to a degree, but I think it’s the wretched excess, particularly given the backdrop of a nation in the throes of an economic meltdown that is just in poor taste…seems kind of like tongue kissing the corpse at a funeral.

Dale Respectfully, outside of the itemized list of why the clothing is a problem and the last paragraph, it looks like you took this thread as an opportunity to rant a bit.

I am not picking a fight, I am just saying you would get your point across better to some (read: at least me) if you would stay w/ the specific topic.

Well, the clothes to me are part of a pattern. I realize that a lot of that isn’t about the clothes, but you have to take it all in together, because the clothes by themselves could just be a star struck, eager to please, plucky young candidate who thought you needed to dazzle and who was told hey, get whatever you want by wealthy and generous benefactors. I pointed out all those other things because I think when taken as a pattern it shows who she really is, and why it’s important to throw another log on the fire as it were, lest democracy will suffer.

….Dale Petrie/Palin 2012!

No, I think I’ll pick Joe the Plumber, at least he’ll keep the faucets running well in the White House. And I’m not running until 2016, let my man Barack have his 8 years.

But Dale, if you pick Joe the Plumber how do you know he’ll show up? He couldn’t even be on time for the candidate he supported this year!

@Empress, do you have a link for that Michelle Obama article?

Trusting, that part of the article isn’t up in full yet, but here’s the summary article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581/page/2

And from it:

The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. “Why would they try to make people hate us?” Michelle asked a top campaign aide.

OK, then I guess I’ll pick Cedric the Entertainer…he usually is on time.

Dale, Sarah Palin can’t pick anyone to replace Stevens should he win and resign. She can appoint someone as a temp, but AK law requires a special election should such a case arise. Frank Murkowski was in the Senate when he ran an won the governorship of Alaska. He immediately appointed his daughter Lisa to take his Senate seat. As a result, there was a bit of an uproar and this law was passed. To be fair, Lisa has since been re-elected on her own and I have no beefs with her. She seems to be working hard and keeping her nose clean. The Begich-Stevens race won’t be decided overnight, tho’, given the closeness and mystery of why so many Alaskans seem to have not voted in an election that should have pulled out voters in record numbers.

As for Sarah, to get this back on topic, she’s back in Wasilla. She flew into Anchorage last night, met the press and a couple hundred fans, then headed home, about an hour north of the airport. I’ve been told that not only did she fly in on the McCain-Palin campaign plane but still had Secret Service protection. No reports or her clothes, tho’ she was wearing heels, high ones at that, when she got off the plane. Shame on you, Sarah, you know better on ice. She’s lucky she didn’t go slip-sliding down. Put those boots back on. You’re back in Alaska!

Of course, if she did appoint herself, she would probably win in the special election given her popularity in the state. As for the Begich-Stevens race, there are something like 50,000 absentee and early ballots out there, and Dems seemed to have an edge in those all over the country. There are about 220k counted at this point (Begich is behind 4,000 about), and even if you add that back in you’re only up to 270k cast ballots, which is actually a 14% drop from 2004, which is probably an indicator of a large number of spoiled ballots. So there seems to be quite a bit of wiggle room for Begich to pull the Senate race out. But the caveat here is that 14% drop could be attributable to a combination of two factors…one that the Presidential race was called before the polls closed in Alaska and two that so many Dems assumed that they weren’t going to win the Presidential race and Begich was so far ahead they couldn’t lose. Even if that did happen though, the fact that there are still 50k absentee ballots not factored in, if patterns hold for Dem strength in early voting, could be enough to erase that 4k advantage for Stevens. It’s a crap shoot at this point, but it sheds som elight on the mystery you speak of.

OK. This is the second time I have seen Alaska post this bit about a law in place to prevent Palin from appointing herself to the Senate.

So. Enough already about that….stop the misinformation.

Seriously though, am I understanding this wrong? Can she not appoint herself as a temp and then run for the seat in the special election? That’s what I read.

It’s my understanding that she could appoint herself temporarily to fill the position but there is some sorta time limit on that. Sorry, don’t know what it is. She would then have to toss her hat in the ring to run for the position in a special election, however, and win in order to keep the position. So, yes, guess it just depends on how you interpret the rule, but she can’t just appoint herself and it’s a done deal.

No, I get that, but given her popularity there (or so I hear), I suspect a) there wouldn’t be a Republican to run against her, so she’d be the Republican on the ticket, and b) the Republican’s going to win (I mean if they’ll elect a convicted felon over a Democrat, I fail to see how Palin would lose the special…anything is possible, but I’m guessing she’d take that bet).

AlaskaTundrea -

What do you think of this article?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/stolen-election-in-alaska_b_141704.html

And if Sarah Palin finds herself with a shiny new Senate seat… would she then get to appoint her choice of governor?

Tongue in cheek. I’m not looking for an answer – unless you know it.

My guess, Trustinglife, is that the lieutenant Governor takes over until the next election.

My apologies to the collective. I stand corrected.

Apparently 1 of 3 things can happen:
1. Palin can appoint herself and then must run in special election w/in 90 days.
2. Palin can resign and then her (now) Lt Gov would become governor and could appoint Palin to the Senate. She must then run in a special election w/in 90 days.
3. Palin can call a special election and run for Senate

Bottom line, if she gets in and stays in office it will be because the people of AK have put her there via election.

See actual law in this link

It looks like they want to get the clothes back.

“Sarah Palin left the national stage Wednesday, but the controversy over her role on the ticket flared as aides to John McCain disclosed new details about her expensive wardrobe purchases and revealed that a Republican Party lawyer would be dispatched to Alaska to inventory and retrieve the clothes still in her possession.”

Snoopy,

All true. Only problem I have with that is your bottom line. There seems to be a pretty realistic possibility that someone in the GOP may have the Alaska election system rigged (see my above article). If that IS true, not claiming it is, I honestly don’t know, but if it IS true, she can grab power.

@Dale (re “What do you think…”)
To be honest, I’m largely confused and the confusion only seems to be growing. I did get an email asking for donations from the Begich camp (www.begich.com) in order to send representatives into various areas of the state (which could be VERY pricey) to watch over the vote counting, so this is far from over. I’ve read some blogs that poll workers have posted saying, yes, the turn-out was light, but early voting was good and the numbers just don’t make sense. One of the areas of Anchorage with one of the largest black populations didn’t turn out to vote much, for instance. In this election of all elections?

Nate at www.fivethirtyeight.com seems to have more questions than answers right now, too, and he was dang close to spot on nationally with his stats and predictions. Heaven only knows we do things different up here in Alaska, but hopefully not this different. I haven’t heard much out of the Berkowitz campaign but figure they are just a bewildered as everyone else observing. I honestly don’t know as much about him as Begich (I lived in Anchorage where Mark Begich is mayor awhile with a very political friend ) , but his numbers make less sense than the Begich/Stevens ones, to be honest.

My hope, quite frankly, is that everything was done legally and that while the vote may have been down, the early votes, which should have favored Begich and Berkowitz, prove the difference. The blog Dale listed, http://mudflats.wordpress.com/ and 538 are probably your best sources at this point. 538 seems to even be ahead of the Begich website on doing updates.

As for Sarah, she’s back in Wasilla and tho’ I haven’t seen her, did see a mutual friend who said the word they’ve gotten on the clothes is that the McCain team was supposed to collect them from the plane prior to her return to Alaska and didn’t. As vocal as I’ve been about saying I didn’t believe she was qualified to be VP, I have no reason to think she’d steal clothing and, in fact, most of it would be pretty darn impractical up here in Alaska anyway. Very few of my upscale duds have left the closet since I moved here, that’s for sure.

the republican party is going to spend god-knows-what on a lawyer to fly him up to alaska to collect what is basically a pile of used clothes? how stupid is that? they should be more classy, act more gracious, not like sore losers and just let bygones be bygones, and drop it. this is getting catty, collecting used clothes to be spiteful. i say they should let it go, move on with figuring out where they went wrong (besides picking Palin).

@jca: She STOLE $200 grand of someone else’s money for clothing! She was allotted a fraction of that! It’s not catty… if someone came to my house and stole, for lack of a better example, a dozen eggs when I said they could have 2, you better believe I’d be on the phone, “where are my fucking eggs, you thief? Bring them back this instant, I’m hungry!”

poof: i understand what you’re saying about she stole it. ok, so if she really stole it, they should prosecute her in a court of law. there’s no doubt she bought the clothes, the issue then is whether or not she did it legally.

if someone came to my house and stole a dozen eggs, i would not want the eggs back, i would want the issue dealt with legally, so they learn a lesson and don’t do it again (hopefully).

She can keep the clothes if she promises to protect the wolves in Alaska and promises not to run in 2012. The world will be better off without her. We need people who remember the names of important newspapers.