Annals of DUMB Mistakes

For the record, this thing with Palin's wardrobe doesn't really piss me off. Sure, she spent $150,000 in campaign money during a recession to outfit herself and her family, but I'm pretty much willing to overlook that. One of Marc's readers has a good perspective:

"Yet for that 150K, what have you got? A Palin who shines, who appears on the front page of every newspaper in the country, whose image lingers on the screen in every newscast, and who dazzles foreign leaders when meeting them in person ... Seriously, what else is the GOP going to be able to capitalize on with her? The wonkish credentials? The well articulated positions? ... For 150K, they bought Extreme Makeover: GOP Edition."

It's about image, and there are many ways in which a campaign can pay for image, this being one of them. Compared to the amount of money the campaigns spend on image via ad buys, this doesn't even register.

But, seriously, how stupid is this? It is ridiculously easy to pile on, because there are so many great visuals. HuffPost's front page has a photo essay of all of her post convention outfits, including a picture of her daughter with a Louis Vuitton bag. They add this:

"During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class -- and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber -- it was revealed that Palin's fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothess in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people. "

Bottom line: there is not a single positive way to spin this, and it will get a ton of attention for at least a couple of days. And even if we completely forget about this by Friday, which is doubtful (cue Tina Fey at Saks), it will have consumed 15% of the remaining total time in this election (2/13 days). John McCain needs to make up a lot of ground according to polls. This is not the way to do it.

-Education Dude