$150,000 Wardrobe for Palin May Alter Tailor-Made Image Sarah Palin’s wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCain’s multiple houses and John Edwards’s $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average “hockey mom” would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores.
Cable television, talk radio and even shows like “Access Hollywood” seemed gripped with sartorial fever after campaign finance reports confirmed that the Republican National Committee spent $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue in September for Ms. Palin and her family.
Advisers to Ms. Palin said on Wednesday that the purchases - which totaled about $150,000 and were classified as “campaign accessories” - were made on the fly after Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, was chosen as the Republican vice-presidential candidate on Aug. 29 and needed new clothes to match climates across the 50 states. They emphasized, too, that Ms. Palin did not spend time on the shopping, and that other people made the decision to buy such an array of clothes.
Advisers to Mr. Obama - as well as those of his rival in the Democratic primaries, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - said that campaign money was never spent on personal clothing, but that potentially embarrassing purchases could be blended into advertising budgets.
Mr. Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, however, listed two now infamous $400 haircuts as a campaign expense, and after they were detected, he struggled to shake an elitist image in his failed Democratic presidential bid.
Such an image is unhelpful at this late stage of the general election, Republicans said, especially when many families are experiencing economic pain, and when the image applies to a candidate — Ms. Palin — who has run for office in part on her appeal as an outdoors enthusiast and former small-town mayor who scorns pretensions.
Poll
